


NIGHTMARES (A Frank Iero fiction)

by Pinchetta



Category: Bandom, Frank Iero - Fandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Cigarettes, Crying, Dreams, Drinking, Drug Use, Fear, Fire, Gen, Gore, Hospitals, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, MCR, Mental Breakdown, Murder, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, Pills, Psychological Trauma, Sick!Frank, Sleep Deprivation, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, Tears, Torture, Violence, Visions, three cheers for sweet revenge era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 56,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2279865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinchetta/pseuds/Pinchetta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Revenge' era.<br/>Frank can't sleep because of terrifying nightmares full of blood and murder... and what if they're not just in his head?<br/>((TRIGGER WARNING: please see tags))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

3am on a freezing cold night in Illinois. The My Chemical Romance tour bus is parked at a service station five miles outside of Chicago in a silent parking lot. The vehicle's blackened windows are foggy with condensation from the heaters inside and the metallic outer skin is sealed in crackling frost. Everyone onboard is fast asleep in their bunks or crashed out on sofas, tired from travelling and the exhilarating chaos of last night's show.

In the band's cramped sleeping quarters Frank is suffering through the latest in a long series of nightmares. Eventually terror and nausea jolt him awake so hard he hits his head on the bunk above his own, his heart crashing against his ribs as he gasps for breath, sweaty and shaking. Fumbling under the pillows for his phone he activates the screen with trembling fingers and watches the grisly echoes of the nightmare fade into bright synthetic light. His vision is all blurry so he rubs his eyes and his hand comes away wet. Fuck, he was crying again. Shivering, he flinches as the phone light goes out and a thousand gruesome images explode back out of the darkness. That poor frightened woman being slaughtered right in front of him, screaming for his help but no matter how hard he tries he can't get to her and she's ripped apart by invisible knives in fountains of blood. Skin slashed and hanging in bloody shreds from her chest and face; flesh torn from her bones; her brown eyes wide and lips contorted with agonised screams: 'Help me! Frank! HE'S KILLING ME! HELP!'  
"No," Frank groans tearfully, scrubbing at his eyes and trying to force the horrifying images away, "It's not real, none of it's real..." 

The curtain of his bunk whips back revealing a dark figure in the shadows and Frank gasps, fear gripping his throat.  
"Hey," the shadows whisper, "Are you okay?"  
"Toro?" Frank pants, "You scared the shit outta me!"  
"You've had another nightmare," Ray sighs, switching on the reading lamp in his own bunk opposite.  
"I guess so," Frank admits shakily, raking his tattooed hands through his black hair. It’s wet and sticky with sweat. Behind Ray someone else is moving around in bed. The whole bus will be awake soon.  
"Come on," Ray whispers, grabbing some clothes from under his bunk, "Let's get some air, huh?" 

It's bitterly cold outside and the guys sneak out quietly and walk in silence over the slippery asphalt to the parking lot wall. Ray leans calmly against the frosty bricks wrapped in a long winter coat while Frank paces up and down in agitation, his small body burning with the need to do something – anything! - to take his mind off that poor girl’s face, ripped apart as she screams for him over and over again... lost in the murderous dark...

"Maybe you should talk to someone about this," Ray suggests, breathing white steam in the frosty air, "This is like the seventh night in a row right? You need some decent sleep, dude, you can't go on like this."  
"Yeah…seven," Frank mutters, searching his jacket pockets for cigarettes. Actually, this is the tenth consecutive night he's woken up before dawn with damp sheets and blood in his eyes but Ray doesn't have to know that. Nobody has to know.  
"It's okay, I'll sleep when I'm dead," he sighs, forcing a joke, "They're just dreams, man. I can handle it."  
"You could talk to Gerard," Ray adds quietly, "He's practically an expert on nightmares."  
"No. Just drop it, okay?" Frank snaps, anger rising out of his exhaustion, "I don't need to talk to Gerard or anyone else about this because it's no big deal!" Looking his much taller friend in the eye he fixes him with a defiant glare. "I'm fine, Toro. Really."  
Ray raises his eyebrows doubtfully in response but says nothing and Frank looks down at his scuffed beer-stained sneakers. His pockets are empty except for gum and a handful of Kleenex. No cigarettes. "Let's go back inside," he mumbles, "I’m freezing." 

***  
Dawn comes too slowly. Afraid to close his eyes again, Frank lies sleepless in his bunk playing with his phone and staring at the digital clock until 6am when he drags himself out of the tangled sheets and tip-toes to the tiny bus bathroom. Locking the door behind him, he sits down on the closed toilet lid and pulls out the medicine box from under the sink, opening it up to reveal a mess of dog-eared band-aids, plastic scissors, antiseptic creams, cold and flu pills, cough drops, condoms, ice-packs and aspirins. He wants some caffeine pills or something to keep him awake today and get him through the show later but no such luck. Sighing wearily, he glances up at the toothpaste-splattered mirror and cringes at his pale reflection. He looks like death warmed up: a fucking ghost with shadows of exhaustion and smeared eyeliner under his bloodshot green eyes. A wave of self-pity washes over him and he drops his head into his hands, shivering in the cold room, on the verge of tears. 

Just a couple of weeks ago he was his usual happy self, full of energy and ideas, playing and partying and able to sleep peacefully for hours in beds, bunks and even on bare floors. Ten nights of hell later and now he can't catch more than a few short hours of nap-time a day without waking up in terror almost pissing his pants. The nightmares feel so real and the fear and torment they bring cuts a new pain through his guts every night. He's jumpy and edgy and despite what he told Ray earlier he's frightened too, scared for his sanity. In twenty-three years of living he's never had dreams this bad before and after ten days of this shit he can barely stay awake in the afternoons and his guitar-playing is suffering onstage at night. Nervous anxiety rattles him constantly and he calls his girlfriend back home half a dozen times a day to make sure she's alright even though the woman killed in his dreams looks nothing like her. 

Angrily shoving the box back under the sink he returns to his bunk, finds some warm clothes to cover his white goosebumped skin and then heads out to buy Red Bull at the nearest store, determined not to let these stupid dreams fuck up his day.


	2. TWO

Red rivers ooze like veins over the slippery floor and a hundred steel blades slash and rip through fragile flesh, destroying, consuming and mutilating without mercy. It's so dark down here but the blood still shines bright crimson and Frank's ears ring with the sick sound of metal tearing skin, muscle and cartilage apart. Her blood soaks his face like rain as she screams for her life, weeping in the darkness, begging him to save her. "Help me, Frank! HELP ME, PLEASE!" 

But he can’t help or even move. He's chained to the filthy floor, lying in his own spilled blood and no matter how hard he fights to free himself he's just not strong enough. His skin crawls with pain and tears fill his throat and burn his eyes. Her lifeless body sinks onto the floor at last and the fatal blades sever her head which rolls stickily towards him trailing wet bloody hair. Sick with grief and terror, Frank tries to scream as the sharp flashing blades come to claim him in the darkness but blood fills his mouth and he starts to choke... 

With a strangled cry, Frank jerks awake and falls off the sofa, landing with a smack on a hard concrete floor. With the metallic taste of blood still on his tongue, he looks up and sees his four band mates staring down at him in confusion and concern. For a few seconds they're all too embarrassed to do anything. Then Gerard walks over and offers Frank his hand, pulling the smaller man easily to his feet.  
"Are you okay?" the singer asks softly out of the corner of his mouth, his hazel eyes bright with worry. Frank nods self-consciously, clenching his shaking hands into fists and trying to calm his ragged breathing. Gerard is wearing black and red clothes and the cheap white make-up that makes him look dead. They're backstage at the Chicago gig before the show in a small smoky dressing room with too many mirrors. 

The band's new drummer Bob is perched on the arm of the couch Frank just vacated tapping away on his phone while Ray plays with a laptop in the corner and Mikey is standing in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. They're all awkwardly avoiding Frank's gaze and he feels his cheeks start to burn. "Come on," Gerard says quietly, nodding at the door, “Let's take a walk.” Wanting very much to vomit from the gory taste in his mouth, Frank follows his friend outside. 

"What's going on with you?" Gerard asks, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it outside the Stage Door. Frank stares at the icy ground and shuffles his feet in the frost, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Nothing," he lies pathetically.  
"Nothing," Gerard echoes, "Uh huh sure. Look, I know you don't want to talk about it...whatever it is, and I can understand that, but don't shut yourself off completely Frankie. Promise me you'll talk to someone about what's wrong even if it's not anyone we know.”  
Frank nods miserably, planning to do no such thing.  
“I know shit seems to come our way a lot,” Gerard adds, breathing tobacco smoke at the dark sky, “And we can take most of the punches but at some point something always gives and if it's your mind then you should take it seriously."  
Frank nods again, scratching his neck as his skin tingles with cold. The sun has set and a chill wind is howling and moaning around the venue.  
"Are you okay to play tonight?" Gerard asks hesitantly, his expression serious.  
"Of course I am!" Frank blurts, "I'm not sick, Gee. I'm just... I dunno. I haven't been sleeping well."  
“I see.”

There's a long pause while Frank lights himself a cigarette inside his cupped hands out of the wind and smokes it furiously down to the filter. "Alright," Gerard says at last. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to talk about while we're out here? You know I'll always listen."  
Frank sighs and closes his eyes then flinches as the dead girl's face flashes into his mind, stained with blood and dark with hate. Snapping his eyes open, he throws his cigarette stub on the ground and lights up a fresh one, avoiding Gerard's gaze as his heart pounds like a hammer in his chest. "No. Nothing." 

***  
That night onstage Frank is ashamed to mess up the intros and chords for three different songs and even though Gerard just laughs it off to the crowd - "Hey, did anyone notice Frank screw up there? He does it on purpose just to fuck with me!" - Frank feels like utter shit. He can't concentrate on his job and can barely feel the heavy guitar in his hands when usually it feels so close to him it's like a part of his body. Playing in this band is what he lives for and what he’s always wanted to do but right now he can’t even do that right!

After the show he goes straight to his motel room alone to shower and sleep determined to beat this thing. He will beat it, he just needs some proper rest. Then everything will go back to normal. Swallowing a couple of over-the-counter sleeping pills with a glass of warm whiskey he lies down in the soft bed in his boxer shorts and an old t-shirt and closes his eyes on the world...

In his dreams Frank is standing in a bright empty room with silver walls and a metal floor and no doors or windows. He's not sure where he is but at least there is no darkness here. There are no murder weapons and no pools of blood. No screaming. It's quiet and empty and he feels safe and sound.  
With nothing else to do, he sits down on the smooth shiny floor and is startled when a girl suddenly appears next to him. He doesn't recognize her but she's quite pretty, about his age, with bleached hair, pink-framed glasses and dramatic eye make-up. She's wearing a purple t-shirt with tight black jeans and some doc marten boots with red ribbons for laces. He smiles at her and she smiles back with perfect white teeth. "That's not the right way," she says loudly.  
"Huh?" Frank stammers, confused.  
"That's not the right way," the girl repeats. Then she laughs at him, her voice echoing off the metal walls.  
Frank stares at her in confusion, "I'm sorry, I don't understand."  
The girl smiles patiently and glances down at Frank's hands. He follows her gaze and sees that he is wearing bright red fingerless gloves. He looks up again and the girl has vanished. So has the safe shiny room....

He is now sitting on a black stage at a My Chemical Romance concert while 'The Ghost of You' plays at full volume in front of a hysterical crowd of fans who are singing along to every word. Looking around, Frank sees Gerard striding around the stage in a black suit and pink feather boa, wielding his microphone like a weapon, while Mikey plucks at a white bass guitar and Bob plays the shit out of some drums. On the left side of the stage, Ray is lounging in a neon green garden chair drinking a Cosmo cocktail with a paper umbrella in it.  
'That's all gravy,' Frank mutters, leaning back against a huge black amp and vaguely wondering why he isn't going deaf. The song pounds along, sounding just like it always does despite the fact that neither Ray nor Frank are playing and after a while Frank feels the comforting weight of a guitar in his lap. When he looks down he sees 'Pansy' - his beloved white Les Paul - and with a smile he gets to his feet, walks into the swirling spotlights and begins to play. The crowd cheers and 'Pansy' sounds so beautiful, responding perfectly to his touch. It's just like old times.

The bright lights shine hot on his face and Frank grins happily as his fingers slide up and down the guitar's strings as naturally as his lungs breathe. The excitement and energy of being onstage courses through his body in waves of pure joy and it seems like such a long time since he's felt this alive that he almost cries with relief. This is what he's been missing since the nightmares began and it feels so good to get it back!

'The Ghost of You' ends triumphantly and Gerard announces 'Headfirst For Halos'. Frank joins in with the opening chords and as the show goes on he plays and sings and throws himself around the stage with everything he has, enjoying every second if it. A sweet euphoria surges through him as sweat streams from his skin and all the pain and anxiety he's been holding on to for the last ten days pours out of him. This is his life and he loves it, this is everything to him! This...  
...isn't real... is it?  
Without warning the headless dead girl appears in front of him like a bolt of lightning and the song sputters and warps into a chorus of inhuman screams. Her blood floods his mouth once more, pouring down his throat and choking him. He's drowning in it! Dropping Pansy, Frank vomits up mouthfuls of scarlet puke and drops to his knees, covering his ears against the deafening screams of pain screeching through the air. "Shut up! Leave me alone!" he begs but his voice is drowned out by the noise and he drags himself upright, ready to run away, confused and frightened... and finds himself back in the empty metal room. 

The concert is gone and the euphoria of performing has run out of him like water down a drain, leaving him cold and empty. The shining walls loom in too close and too bright and a chill of fear runs down his spine. He doesn't want to be here. This feels wrong! Looking wildly around for a door or a window, he can't find any. There's no way out! "Hey!" he shouts nervously, "Can anyone hear me?" No answer. No sounds at all. 

Panting anxiously, Frank rubs at his bare arms and his skin feels hot and prickly like bugs are crawling all over him. A wave of dread washes through his stomach and he hugs himself, chewing his lip, afraid without knowing why. There's a flash of light and a rush of unbearable heat and then white-hot flames burst out of his skin and surge across his body in a roaring crackling fire that burns through his clothes and flesh! Screaming in pain and shock, he tries to beat the flames with his hands but his fingers are burning too: blistering red and black as lumps of charred skin sizzle and melt off his bones! Collapsing to the floor Frank screams in agony as the flames consume him... 

...and he wakes up in bed with a hoarse cry of fear. Throwing back the covers, he desperately slaps his shaking hands all over his body to fight off the roaring flames burning into his flesh. But he isn't actually on fire anymore. It was just another nightmare. 

Gasping and trembling against the crumpled pillows, Frank tries to catch his breath and ends up bursting into tears instead. His chest feels weighted and tight and his skinny body shudders with the force of his violent panicky sobs. His skin feels hot to the touch and his face is wet with sweat and tears. The fire felt so real and hurt so much, like he was really dying! What the fuck is happening to him?!

It's still the dead of night and the motel room is pitch black but like a frightened child he's too scared to get up and turn on the light. Finally after several minutes alone shivering and whimpering in the dark he can't take it anymore and lunges for the bedside lamp, flicking it on and checking the time on the alarm clock. It's only 12:45am: he's been asleep for less than an hour! Groaning miserably, he rubs his eyes and immediately sees fresh flames roaring out of the dark to kill him in the worst way possible! Gasping with panic, Frank stumbles off the bed and runs for the bathroom, turning on the lights and setting the shower to Cold before climbing in fully clothed. As the torrent of freezing water drenches his hair and skin he forces himself to calm his frightened breathing and racing heartbeat, gulping deep lungfuls of moist air and keeping his eyes wide open against the imaginary fire.

An hour later he still can't bring himself to leave the safety of the shower so he curls up miserable and exhausted on the wet tiles, hugging his knees to his chest and sobbing weakly as the cold water gushes down upon his head. He can't let himself fall asleep again. He can't take anymore of these dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--------------- (( Hi readers. I'm not sure about this story, it's something I'm editing on the side while I focus on 'All Dead Now' but if you like it I'll keep updating. We'll see where it goes :) xo


	3. THREE

In the morning MCR's young tour manager, Brian, knocks on Frank’s door to fetch him for an interview and photoshoot the band have scheduled with a new music magazine across town. Frank is already awake, aching and edgy from a long night spent shivering in the bathroom trying to forget his dreams, and when Brian calls he has to force himself to get moving, dragging on warm winter clothes and a pair of sunglasses to hide his tired, puffy eyes before reluctantly emerging into the corridor with his suitcase ready to go. 

During the ride to the magazine's office, Frank sits silently in the back of the bus with his headphones on listening to old punk music he liked as a kid but the familiar songs do nothing to comfort him now. He's so tired he feels physically sick. During the interview he barely says a word and lets the rest of the band talk while he stares blindly into a cup of lukewarm black coffee. When it's time for the photoshoot he’s so obviously dead on his feet that the photographer takes pity on him and poses the band on a sofa so he can sit down. 

After grabbing some lunch at a diner nearby, the guys sign a couple of autographs for a few fans waiting eagerly around the bus and then drive back to the concert venue for a sound check. Frank gives his guitar to a technician and sits down in the empty audience stands by himself to watch his band mates rehearse, not wanting to step onto the stage until he absolutely has to: it looks too much like the one from last night's dream.

While Mikey's low bass notes throb through the empty theater, Frank puts his feet up on the chair in front of him and swallows a double dose of painkillers with his sixth coffee of the day. A dull pounding headache has been burning behind his eyes all afternoon and his mind is blurry and unable to focus on any particular thing. He wants to perform in the show tonight but he's not sure if he has the energy and this depresses him so much he starts to cry a little behind his sunglasses. His nightmares are only getting worse and the gruesome images and sensations are there waiting for him every time he shuts his eyes. What do they mean? Why won’t they fucking go away?!  
Slumping miserably in his seat, Frank cradles his aching head in his hands and stares at the stage as disjointed chords rattle off the venue walls. Images of flames and torn skin flicker and dance in his head, cutting him off from everything else, and when he drifts back to reality he notices his right hand has slipped inside his jacket pocket and is playing with the switch on his lighter.

Someone sits down next to him and he knows who it is without looking. They smell like grapefruit juice and cigarettes. “Hey, Gee.”  
“Hey,” Gerard replies, “Are you okay?”  
“I’m sick of people asking me that,” Frank snaps quickly, leaning forwards over the chair in front of him and gazing straight ahead at the stage. He hopes Gerard can’t tell he’s been crying.  
“Look, Frankie, the guys and I are all really worried about you,” Gerard says hesitantly, “We've been thinking that, er, maybe you should take a couple of days off from the tour, y'know, to clear your head? Maybe go home for a while, get some rest.”

Frank turns to look at his friend in shock. He was expecting this but somehow it still hits him like a punch to the gut. “You want to kick me off the tour?”  
“What? No! Don’t make it sound so sinister,” Gerard says nervously, “You know that’s not what this is. None of us want you to go but realistically you’re exhausted and you can’t keep this up without getting sick. It’s just a few days, man. Go home and get some R&R and then you'll come back and feel better. That’s all.”  
Frank tries to swallow the warm lump rising in his throat. “But...what about the fans?” he mumbles pitifully.  
“We’ll just tell them you’re sick. They’ll understand. You’ll probably get a thousand get well messages on MySpace.”  
Frank nods tearfully and gets to his feet, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve. His legs feel like rubber and his eyes are burning behind his shades. He can‘t be here right now, not feeling like this. “I don't know, Gee,” he mutters, choking back tears, “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about this now. I’ll see you later.” 

***  
It’s a cold and windy winter's day in the city and Frank runs away from the venue as fast as he can, pushing through the early evening crowds and growling traffic, down long dark streets he doesn’t know into the smoky twilight. He isn’t sure why he’s running or what he’s running from but every impulse in his body is screaming at him to move, to get away, to run forever and he can’t stop. Eventually, he finds himself at an elevated train station and jumps on the first one to pull in, not caring where he ends up. 

The train stops near one of the big lakes and Frank jumps the security gate at the platform and bolts into the street, running all the way down to the frost-covered railings bordering the cold, green water. Slipping his shades up into his tangled hair, he stands over the lake's choppy surface, panting for breath and starts crying again, tears freezing on his face as the metal railings stick to his clammy fingers. The icy wind numbs his skin and chills his body and it’s actually a relief being this cold because it's the furthest thing away from feeling like he's on fire. He feels safe here now. He can stop running.

For a long time, Frank stands by the endless water lost in empty thoughts and when a craving for a cigarette finally brings him around, he’s surprised to see that the moon has risen high in the dark sky and it's starting to snow. He’s never stood still for so long before - he must be getting sick or something. Shaking sleet from his hair, he begins to walk back towards the train station but cant remember the way. The orange street-lamps shine eerily on the cars flashing past and the wind blows harder and icier as the snow thickens, stinging his face with a million tiny ice crystals. He walks blindly through the harsh weather for nearly an hour, turning down one random street after another, getting colder and colder, but he can’t find his way back to the station or to any place that’s familiar. He’s completely and hopelessly lost.

Stopping at a Starbucks to warm up and get some coffee, Frank tries calling Brian on his cell but all he gets is a voicemail. The concert must have started and Brian will be standing too close to the stage to hear his phone. “Fuck,” Frank whispers, wandering out of the coffee shop and leaning heavily against the wall of the convenience store next door, suddenly feeling very alone. He isn’t used to feeling this disconnected from people. Usually when he tours with the band they are always together and when he’s back home in New Jersey, he’s surrounded by his family and friends but this is a strange city and he doesn’t know people here. Sighing miserably, he softly bangs his aching head against the wall, his mind fuzzy with exhaustion and cold. He considers calling Information to get the number of a local cab company but he doesn’t have enough money left for a fare to get him half-way across town and he left his wallet back at the venue. Checking his pockets for cigarettes he remembers he’s run out and walks into the store behind him to buy some more. He should have enough money for that at least. When he sees who’s standing behind the counter, he almost turns around and walks straight back out again. 

“Hi there,” says the pretty shop girl with dyed white hair and dramatic eye makeup, smiling at Frank from behind her pink-framed glasses. A shiver runs down his spine. This is the girl from his dream last night, the girl in the metal room. This is exactly her, down to the last detail! But how could she be here, now? He's never even been to this store before. Wondering if he's asleep or hallucinating, Frank stands there staring open-mouthed at the girl until she begins to look uncomfortable and he bites down hard on his tongue, realising that he is in fact awake. The girl is real.  
“Um, hi,” he finally manages to say. She’s wearing a purple shirt and bright red fingerless gloves. Exactly like in the dream.  
“Can I help you, sir?” the girl asks impatiently.  
Frank looks at her again, searching her eyes for any trace of recognition but he finds none at all. She doesn’t know his face so why does he know hers?  
“No. Thanks,” he answers hoarsely, “I just need some... uh, some soda.” Shaking his head, he picks an aisle at random and starts to walk down it.  
“That’s not the right way,” the girl calls after him. Déjà vu rockets through Frank’s brain and he stops in his tracks, cold sweat on his skin. “W-What?” he stammers, turning back.  
“For soda. That’s not the right way,” the girl says and then she laughs shyly. Deja vu, deja vu. “Are you alright, sir?”  
“I…No!” Frank gasps, rushing out of the store into the dark and falling snow. 

***  
“Where the hell is he?” Gerard sighs, hanging up on Frank’s voicemail for the seventh time. Brian shakes his head and shrugs, “I’ve asked the crew and everyone else I could think of. No one’s seen Frank since sound check.”  
“That was seven hours ago,” Mikey reminds them.  
“That’s a really long time not to answer your phone,” Ray adds nervously.  
“He should have checked in with somebody,” Gerard agrees, “Or at least come back here for his stuff. This isn’t like him, Brian. He would never bail on us before a show unless something was really wrong.”

The guys are assembled in the small tour bus lounge, dressed in after-show clothes with their ears still ringing from the concert. The guitarist from their support band managed to stand in for Frank onstage after he disappeared but the dynamic of the band was shaken up and the performance hadn't been one of their best. After the show when Frank still hadn't turned up, Ray went back to the motel they stayed in last night to look for him but the runaway guitarist hadn’t checked back in and seemed to have disappeared without a trace into the city. After gathering everyone together, Brian realized that he’d missed a call from Frank's phone during the concert but there’d been no word from him since. 

Now it's after midnight and everyone is worried.  
“He’s been sleeping so badly,” Ray says, “Maybe he fell asleep somewhere?”  
“He could've been mugged,” Mikey frets, “I mean, Frank’s small, he’s an easy target.”  
Brian sighs and reaches for his phone. “I'll start calling the hospitals.” 

“County General Emergency Room.”  
“Yes, hi. I need to know if you have a patient there by the name of Frank Iero. I-e-r-o.”  
“Are you a relative, sir?”  
“No, I’m his tour manager, technically his boss. He doesn’t have family in Chicago. I'm responsible for him.”  
“I see.”  
“Please, I just need to know if he’s there or not. He would have come in tonight.”  
“Okay, sir. Let me check our admissions…Yes, he’s here. Arrived about three hours ago.”

They find Frank in a chaotic curtained section of the ER, sitting alone on a hospital bed with his legs dangling over the edge, wearing a short-sleeved white gown with his jeans and muddy sneakers.  
“Thank God. Frank, are you okay?” Brian asks, rushing over to him.  
Frank shakes his head, biting his lip like he doesn't trust himself to speak, and holds up his left arm for his friends to see. Sterile medical dressings and white bandages are covering his tattooed skin from his fingers all the way up to a few inches above his elbow and the guys stare at it in horror. “What happened?” Ray gasps.  
Frank lowers his injured arm into his lap and starts running his other hand anxiously through his hair, his bloodshot green eyes flooding with tears. “I think I'm going crazy!” he blurts, “I mean seriously losing it or something. Fuck, I don't know how but these things I dreamed about... This stuff is h-happening in real life now, I swear, but that's not possible right? It can't be real s-so I must be crazy!”  
“Dude, what are you talking about?” Gerard asks, looking a little scared.  
“Tell us what happened to your arm,” Brian says softly, sitting beside Frank on the bed, “You can talk to us, buddy, it’s okay. We won't think you’re crazy.”  
Frank closes his eyes and tugs hard at his hair in agitation as tears spill down his cheeks. “My arm got burned,” he sobs weakly, “I caught on fire...”


	4. FOUR

“She was there in the shop, the girl from my nightmare. She was fucking standing right in front of me and she said the same thing she did in the dream, exactly the same! I was so freaked out I had to get out of there and I ran but it was snowing and dark and I got lost. I couldn't stop running and I wasn't looking where I was going. I ran under a bridge and right into this fire some homeless guys had stoked with booze…”  
Frank stops for a moment and wipes his eyes on the back of his hand, not looking at anyone. “I tripped and fell,” he continues shakily, “And m-my sleeve caught fire, my whole jacket! It was so hot I thought I was gonna die but they just fucking laughed! My arm was burning and the f-fire started to spread. That's when they kicked some snow over me a-and put the fire out but they were scary guys and I ran off again cos I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to get back to the venue but I couldn't find the way and my arm hurt so bad I guess I couldn't think straight. I sort of walked around for a while, like in shock or something. Then this lady found me and brought me here to the hospital.”  
“Oh Frankie,” Brian mutters sadly.  
“Why didn’t you call us or answer your phone, buddy?” Ray asks gently.  
“I lost my phone,” Frank sniffles, “It must have fallen out of my pocket when I fell. I didn’t think you’d be missing me yet.”  
“Of course we were,” Mikey cries, “No one could find you and we were getting worried you might be dead or something!”  
“Are you sure this girl in the store was the one from your nightmare?” Gerard asks softly, “You’re seriously sleep-deprived Frankie, maybe you were just imagining the deja vu.”

Frank fiercely shakes his head, his reddened eyes wide, “No, it was definitely her,” he insists, “And I’ve never met her before in real life, Gee, I’m sure of it. She wasn’t a fan from a show or a signing cos she didn’t recognise me and she had a Chicago accent so she’s not from Jersey. I wish I could show you but you have to believe me! What she said and then the fire, it all came true, like a warning or something!”  
“That sounds pretty creepy,” Bob remarks.  
“Or pretty crazy,” Mikey mutters, looking worriedly at Frank.

“Alright, let's not talk about this here,” Brian says decisively, “I need you guys out of this hospital and safely back on the bus.”  
“I'm just waiting for the docs to give me some painkillers,” Frank sniffles, still shivering with anxiety.  
“Ok,” Brian nods, patting his shoulder with a comforting hand, “But then you need to discharge yourself, alright? Gerard, stay here and help him. We'll find some transport and meet you outside. Come on guys.”

“You'll be okay, Frankie,” Gerard comforts, taking off his coat and handing it to his friend as the others walk away, “It’s over now.”  
Frank sighs wearily and shakes his head, his eyes ringed with dark circles of exhaustion. “This isn’t over, Gee,” he whispers miserably, pulling the coat on over his hospital shirt and zipping it snugly up to his chin, “If one of my dreams can come true then that means all of them can and I’ve been dreaming some seriously messed up shit for the last two weeks. People could start dying!”  
“Dude come on, be serious. Nightmares aren’t real! As much as they scare us, they can‘t come true and what happened to you tonight was all just some horrible coincidence. I’m sorry you had to go through it but it's over now. We'll keep you safe, I promise, and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”  
Frank stares sadly at his best friend, hurt burning bright in his sleepless eyes. “You don't believe me do you?”  
“Frankie, it's not about believing you. I'm just trying to put things in perspective.”  
“Don't fucking patronize me, Gee, I can't take that! Not from you. Let’s just go.”

***  
When everyone is back on the bus Brian takes Frank aside and presses a bottle of powerful sleeping pills into his hand. “These’ll make sure you get some decent rest tonight.”  
“But I don't want to sleep,” Frank says nervously, “What if the nightmares come back? I don’t want that!”  
“Frank, listen to me. You NEED to sleep. Aside from the nightmares you’ve been awake for almost two weeks straight and you’re exhausted. If you don’t get some rest there will be serious consequences to your health. Do you understand?”  
Frank nods miserably, his head aching, too tired to argue. Looking at the plastic bottle of pills, he realizes they aren’t just over the counter meds. “These are prescription. Where did you get these?”  
Brian just shrugs, “My job is to make sure you guys have everything you need and you need these tonight. Don’t worry, they’re on the level. Just sleep, Frankie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

That night, dosed heavily with tiny miraculous pills, Frank sleeps so deeply that he can’t remember his dreams and finally gets some real healing rest.

***  
The following day the band fly to Los Angeles for the next leg of the tour and Frank sleeps for most of the plane ride. His arm doesn’t hurt too much - luckily the burns are superficial - and since it’s his left arm he decides after a little practice that he can still play his guitar as long as he doesn’t get too carried away. Reluctantly, the band agree that he can stay on the tour. “But if the nightmares don’t stop, you are going home,” Gerard warns him, “We care too much about you to let you run yourself into the ground like this.”

The Californian weather is dazzlingly bright and sunny compared to the freezing snows of Chicago and despite a faint city smog hanging overhead it's still a beautiful day. After a couple of hours hanging around their motel the band decide to head out to find a pizza place.

Frank trails behind the others as they wander down the boulevards. Despite feeling a little more rested he's not in the mood to talk to anyone and behind his aviator sunglasses his eyes are stinging as a persistent headache pounds inside his skull. In the blinding daylight the events of last night seem ridiculously distant, almost like a horrible nightmare themselves, but the constant itch of bandages on his arm remind him that he can't pass any of it off as just his sleep-deprived imagination. 

A lone cloud passes over the sun for a moment, smothering its light, and Frank's stomach twists with anxiety as he thinks about the coming night-time and having to go to sleep again. He can’t keep taking the pills Brian gave him forever. What if he gets addicted or something? That’s the last thing he needs. He's going to have to try and sleep naturally at some point but what if his dreams never go back to normal?

“Hey.” A soft, friendly voice cuts into his dismal thoughts and he looks up to see that Bob has drifted away from the others to walk beside him. “Oh, hey.”  
“So, um, about last night,” Bob begins, sucking nervously at his lip ring, “I just wanted to tell you I don’t think you’re crazy, man.”  
“That’s okay,” Frank sighs, kicking a stray soda can across the sidewalk, “You don’t have to try and make me feel better.”  
“No really,” Bob adds earnestly, “I mean people have premonitions before disasters or accidents all the time, like that guy who painted what would happen on 9/11 or the people who cancelled their tickets on the Titanic at the last minute because they had a ‘bad feeling’ about it?”  
Frank nods slowly, watching the other guys stop at a street crossing up ahead. “I guess,” he mutters.  
“It happens more often than people think,” Bob finishes half-heartedly, “I just thought you’d want to know that I believe you.”  
“Thanks,” Frank replies, smiling slightly, “I really mean it, Bob. Thanks.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Ray asks as they gather together on the crossing and Gerard pushes the button for the lights.  
“Nothing,” Bob shrugs. Then Frank suddenly runs into the stream of oncoming traffic, ignoring the Don't Walk sign and dashing in front of the moving cars before he can stop himself. The asphalt is sticky under his sneakers and several horns immediately honk in alarm. He’s not even half-way across the busy road before a speeding Chevy pick-up truck hits him dead on. The impact from the vehicle's bumper breaks the bones in his legs but he barely has time to feel the pain before he’s thrown headfirst over the truck's hood and his skull is shattered against the windshield.

“Frank, hey! What’s wrong?”  
“What’s he doing?”  
“Frankie!”  
Frank opens his eyes, feeling the wet warmth of blood running down his face as his breath comes in panicked gasps that burn in his throat. His friends are staring down at him in surprise and he blinks up at them through the sun’s glare, feeling a smooth hard pavement under his body but despite what just happened to him he can't feel any pain. Looking down in shock he can't see any blood on his clothes and there are no broken bones. But the Chevy hit him, he remembers it! He felt the impact! Why the fuck isn’t he dead?! Gerard and Bob are kneeling on either side of him gripping his arms like they're trying to hold him down. What the hell is going on?

Squinting into the sun, Frank realises that his sunglasses have come off and his throat feels raw like he's been screaming but he doesn’t remember doing that. “What...W-What just happened?” he croaks fearfully. Without answering Bob glances at Gerard who nods uncertainly and they both let go off Frank’s arms. Frank immediately reaches up to touch his face and finds out that it’s wet with sweat, not blood. “What the fuck?” he whimpers, trembling with panic and terror. Why isn't he dead? Why isn't he hurt?! 

Gerard helps him to his feet and Frank looks around to see that he’s safe and sound on the crossing with his friends and a small crowd of strangers has gathered around to stare at him curiously. Beyond them, traffic is streaming calmly past in the street as if no accident had ever occurred and an anxious nauseous confusion starts surging through his guts. He ran into the street and a truck hit him, he’s sure of it! He remembers!  
“What h-happened?” he asks Gerard in a hoarse croak, looking helplessly into his friend's worried eyes as he tries to keep his voice from shaking. 

Without answering, Gerard puts his arm around Frank’s shoulders and pulls him gently away from the crowd of onlookers and into the nearest building - a small coffee shop. Sitting Frank down at a table, Gerard pulls up a chair opposite and Ray and Mikey go to the counter to order something while Bob sits down next to Frank. “Are you okay?” the drummer asks nervously.  
“Yeah, I think so,” Frank lies. Truthfully, he feels like he’s going to vomit. “Please guys, just tell me what happened out there.”  
“You tell us,” Gerard replies, “One minute you’re standing there with Bob perfectly normal and the next moment you collapsed and started screaming and shaking! We had to hold you down in case you hurt yourself.”  
“What?” Frank gasps, completely stunned.  
“You don't remember?”  
“No! Did I say anything while I was…like that?”  
“Nothing that made sense,” Bob sighs, picking at the paper menu on the table.  
“What do you think happened?” Gerard asks seriously, sliding his sunglasses up into his hair.  
“Well, I...I ran into the street,” Frank stammers, his chest tight with anxiety, “After me and Bob joined you guys I ran into traffic and a truck hit me, a blue Chevy! It broke my legs, and m-my head smashed into...I think it fucking killed me!”  
“No it didn’t,” Gerard says calmly in the slow patient tone that people use to talk to small children, “Nothing hit you. You’re fine.”  
“You didn’t run into the street, Frank,” Bob adds seriously, “That never happened. You were hallucinating.”  
“No I wasn’t!” Frank yells in frustration, “It happened, it was real!”  
“Frank listen to yourself, you were obviously NOT hit by a car,” Gerard snaps, ignoring curious glances from nearby tables, “You’re not even hurt!”  
“But…it felt...” Frank trails off, lost for words. Gerard is right, he isn't hurt. It all sounds so ridiculous now. “I must be losing my mind,” he whispers, tears burning in his eyes as a dark chill of dread settles into his skin, “Ohgod...” Burying his face in his arms on the table, he tries to swallow the hot lump in his throat thinking 'Don't cry. Not here. Don’t you dare fucking cry!'

“Frankie?” It's Ray’s voice. He and Mikey must be back with fresh coffee and comforting words. Like they’re gonna help.  
“I’m not crazy,” Frank sobs, still hiding his face, “I’m not!” Silence from the table. Nobody knows what to say but the air suddenly rings with the unmistakable squeal of braking tyres followed by a massive BANG! Everyone in the coffee shop including Frank and Gerard jumps to their feet and dashes over to the windows. “Oh my god!” Mikey gasps, staring out at the mess. A blue Chevy pick-up has crashed into the side of the restaurant next door and behind the smashed vehicle its dark rubber tyre tracks lead back into the street where a young man is lying motionless in a pool of blood and broken glass. 

People start flooding out of surrounding buildings towards the commotion and a hysterical woman with a bad fake tan runs into the coffee shop screaming at the top of her lungs. “Someone call 911!” she shrieks, pointing outside, “That truck just hit a guy and I think he's dead!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Uh oh, what the hell is going on? I'll update again soon, faithful readers. xx))


	5. FIVE

Lorna sat in grim expectation on the front steps of her house and watched the darkening LA skyline with tired eyes. In her right hand she clutched an old switchblade knife which she flicked open and shut neurotically, anxiously, waiting for the moment when everything would change and death would come calling again as storm clouds massed on the horizon. The sunny musk of another afternoon in the city would soon turn into a damp chill breeze filled with electricity and ozone and the people in the street were walking fast, glancing nervously upwards for the first sign of rain. It would be a freak storm but Lorna had been expecting it for days. She'd seen it coming.

A dull thud echoed inside the house behind her and she heard the uneven tread of heavy footsteps and the long lazy creak of settling couch springs as her father no doubt fetched himself another beer from the fridge. His eighth or ninth can since breakfast. She scowled and ignored the noises, shivering in her white cotton dress as a gust of wind swept up the grimy street towards her home, spewing dust over the garbage cans and old car parts cramming up the front yard.  
Cars streamed sluggishly past with drivers honking their horns half-heartedly in the static haze of the road and Lorna watched them anxiously until a blue pick-up truck suddenly came speeding round the corner, swerving in and out of waiting traffic before stopping reluctantly at a red light. The driver was obviously in a great hurry to get somewhere today. Too bad he'd never make it. 

Lorna tensed with instant dread and stood up, slipping her knife in her dress pocket before running to the yard fence and unchaining her red bicycle. Swiftly mounting the bike, she pushed it onto the sidewalk and pedalled level with the blue pick-up, waving her arm to get the driver's attention. Naturally he ignored her, and just then the light turned green and he sped off towards the nicer side of town leaving her in the dust. Cursing under her breath, Lorna ducked her head into the wind and rode in pursuit, weaving rapidly between pedestrians and tiny dogs as she followed the car towards the shopping boulevards and the last of the day’s bright sunshine. Her face remained calm but inside her heart was pounding with terror and her palms sweated on the bike's handlebars, slippery on the warm metal. The truck sped up even more and she struggled to keep it in her sight. If only it would stop, just for a few seconds, just so she could warn the driver to slow the fuck down! She knew the accident would happen soon but she didn't know the exact location or the the precise time. All she remembered from her nightmares was the flash of sun fading into the stormclouds, the vague shapes of an unknown street, and a cute young guy getting run over by the same blue vehicle that she was now chasing.

The pick-up turned a corner up ahead, heading towards a row of boutiques and coffee bars and Lorna pedalled as fast as she could, careening recklessly through traffic to the other side of the road and then around the corner after her target. Maybe she’d make it, maybe she could…  
SCREEEECH!  
BANG!  
Lorna watched in horror, her heart in her throat, as the truck slammed into a man who'd run into the road several meters ahead of her and sent him flying into the windshield and over the roof where he landed with a fatal wet thud on the road. Swerving wildly, the pick-up spun out of control and flew across the pavement, brakes squealing, to smash into the side of a nearby restaurant. It was all over. She was too late.

“Fuck!” Lorna cried, not caring who heard her as she pedalled doggedly towards the crash scene. The other traffic in the road had ground to a halt around the accident and some pedestrians were standing around shrieking uselessly while others came streaming out of the surrounding buildings to gawk at the chaos. An obese man wearing a Slayer t-shirt actually started taking pictures of the gore with his digital camera as a few people who actually had half a brain went running over to check on the man who’d been hit, dialling 911 on their cell phones. They couldn't save him - Lorna knew without a doubt that the guy was dead and ditto for the truck's driver - but at least they were trying. 

As she drew level with the corpse a fresh jolt of panic hit her as she realised that this man wasn’t the same guy she had seen dying in her nightmares. This guy looked Mexican but the man she had dreamt about was White and tattooed and…Lorna slammed her feet onto the ground and halted the bike with a jerk as she finally spotted the young stranger from her dreams standing ALIVE in the window of a nearby coffee shop. What the fuck was going on?!

Lorna's first instinct was to run home, bury her head in the sand and never look back but curiosity held her still. The guy from her nightmares was looking out at the accident and hadnt seen her. There was no logical reason for her to be afraid. He was quite harmless-looking actually: short, about her height, and pretty skinny with a cute, young face and black and blonde dyed hair cut long at the front and short and spikey towards the back. He had rings in his lip and nose and was wearing jeans, a red t-shirt and battered Vans slip-ons and his bare arms were tattooed and bandaged. He looked tired and frightened and kinda like he'd been crying too, his pretty green eyes all red around the edges. Basically, he looked exactly the same as he had in Lorna’s dreams about the accident. Every detail was identical...except for the fact that he wasn’t lying dead in the street right now.

Suddenly he turned away from the crash scene and before she could move he saw her watching him. Lorna swallowed hard, gripping her handlebars with white-knuckled fingers as his eyes widened with shock at the sight of her and she realized that this stranger somehow recognized her too.

***  
“Oh my god,” Frank chokes, staring in horror at the devastation outside, “That's the truck!”  
“The one you thought had hit you?” Gerard asks sceptically and Frank can only nod in answer, hardly able to believe it himself. His burned arm itches and stings and he realises it’s because his skin is covered in a cold sweat. His hands are shaking and he can barely feel the floor under his feet. Swallowing hard, he feels like he might vomit and starts to turn away from the carnage outside... and that’s when he sees her. 

A cry of shock catches in his throat and all he can do is stare at the young blond woman on the red bicycle as she looks back at him in equal fear and amazement. It's the woman from his nightmares! Not the shop girl with the cryptic words but the first woman, the one being murdered in the dark by invisible knives, the one who screams his name over and over again as she dies in agony. She’s standing in the middle of the fucking street right in front of him!  
Numb with shock, Frank stumbles backwards, gagging on the familiar taste of blood, and trips over a chair, landing with a smack on the coffee shop floor. “Woah, are you okay?” Gerard gasps, helping Frank up and resting a steadying hand on his arm. “She’s here!” Frank blurts frantically, his eyes impossibly wide and panicked.  
“Who?” Ray asks, glancing around in confusion.  
“The girl!” Frank cries, shaking off Gerard's grip and running for the door. 

Bursting outside into the cooling stormy air, Frank looks around for the blond girl, his head spinning, but she’s disappeared. “No! Fuck,” he gasps, fearing for a moment that she was just a hallucination. Then he spots a flash of red, white and blond pedalling away down the boulevard and he bolts after her, pushing through the crowds of people milling around the accident like cattle into the open street. For a minute or two he can hear the confused shouts of Gerard and Bob behind him, getting further and further away, but their voices are soon lost in the buzz of cars and people and the sound of his heartbeat roaring in his ears as his feet pound the dusty sidewalk. The girl sails down the boulevard and cycles two blocks over into the heart of the nearest shopping district, rocketing through the crowds of afternoon shoppers. Frank follows as fast as he can, determined not to let her vanish into the city, and once or twice she glances back at him over her shoulder and swerves her bicycle in a new direction like she’s trying to shake him off. 

Frustrated and breathless, Frank jumps down a flight of white stone steps and in his rush he stumbles at the bottom, tripping over and skinning his knees through the holes in his jeans. Cursing, he picks himself up, blood trickling down his shins, and looks around for the girl but she’s gone, melted away with the dying sunshine as if she had never been there at all.  
“Fuck!” he screams, not caring how many people turn to stare at him as he stands there angrily gasping for breath. “Fuck,” he groans more quietly, sitting down at the foot of the steps with sweat dripping down his face. High above him the sky has clouded over and the humid air smells like rain. His clammy skin prickles with static as a white flash splits the sky and thunder rumbles in the distance. A storm is coming.

The new cell phone Brian bought him to replace the one he lost in Chicago vibrates in his pocket and without looking, Frank assumes it’s Gerard calling to find out where he is. Wiping a hand over his face, he stands up unsteadily and answers the call but it's not Gerard. It’s his girl back home.  
“Hey babe,” he answers shakily, wincing at the sting in his bloodied knees as he stands up.  
'Frankie, you sound weird,’ she exclaims worriedly, “What's happened?”  
“Nothing. Well...I don't know, I mean, I’m not sure,” Frank stammers, tired tears flooding his eyes as her voice fills him with homesickness.  
‘Gerard called last night from Chicago and asked if I'd heard from you,’ she sighs, 'He said it was nothing to worry about but then you wouldn’t answer your phone and I had to call him back to get your new number. What's going on?'  
“I’m sorry baby,” Frank whispers, pressing a trembling hand against his eyes, “I can't explain but I'm just… I'm not myself today. I got lost in Chicago, that's why Gerard was worried, and I haven't been sleeping. Things are getting a little crazy and I feel kinda like I might be losing it, like I'm slipping, y'know, in my head? I think the crazy parts of my brain are working overtime and I just can't get any relief...” Sighing a long deep breath, Frank trails off, realizing just how thoroughly and completely miserable he feels right now. He'll probably break up with this chick if he ever makes it back to Jersey. “Listen, babe, I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow... I miss you,” he adds weakly.  
‘I miss you too, sweetie. You sound like shit, go have a nap, hmm?’  
“Yeah.”  
'Bye Frankie.'  
“Bye.”

Frank hangs up and wipes his eyes, clearing his throat self-consciously and looking around to find the street around him deserted as fat gray raindrops begin to splatter the pavement. All the busy shoppers have disappeared into shops and cafes to avoid the bad weather and while he's still standing there, the storm finally breaks, rain pouring down in torrents from the heavy black sky as thunder booms and lightning crackles. Puddles quickly cover the creamy asphalt and water begins to bubble through the shallow gutters. Sighing again, Frank ignores the deluge and slowly slides his phone back into his jeans, feeling nauseous and depressed. The rain soaks quickly through his t-shirt and bandages, plastering his hair and clothes to his cold skin and making his burns and grazes throb with aches and pain. Looking around he tries to spot a street sign that will tell him where he is. She's here again.

The blond woman is back, standing not thirty feet away from him in the mouth of an alleyway between a clothes boutique and a juice bar. Her bike is propped against the wall behind her and she’s standing in front of it with her arms folded over her chest, ignoring the rain as it seeps through her dress and drips down her legs into the black boots on her feet. Her large brown eyes are staring openly at him and with no other choice he walks hesitantly towards her through the storm. This time she doesn’t flee. Her dress shimmers in the rain, bright white in the gray downpour and he feels magnetically drawn to her somehow, drawn to the mystery and tragedy in her face.  
Who is she and why did she lead him here? Why the fuck has he dreamt about her horrible gruesome death over and over again?  
Frank shivers with fear as well as cold as he realises that he might be about to find some of the answers he’s been looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Sorry it's been a while since the last update. work is crazy atm. enjoy! But before anyone asks: nope, i will not be pairing Frank off romantically in any way with Lorna. That ain't where this horrorshow is headed. ;) xx))


	6. SIX

She stands like a statue in the storm, watching the man from her nightmares come closer and closer and knows that it's not worth running away anymore: that won't solve anything. When she glanced behind her just now and saw the poor guy take a fall on the piazza steps, she hit the brakes on her bike and turned around to hear what he has to say. She needs to hear it.

The rain pounding down on her head has already soaked through the guy's shirt and soft-looking black and bleached hair, making them cling to his wet skin, and for a moment she lets her eyes trace the attractive contours of his body and the handsome features of his young face. There's blood on his knees and a wet bandage on his arm and he looks vulnerable and hurt and kind of cute, not scary at all. Unfolding her arms, she slips her right hand into the pocket of her dress and grips the switchblade she put there earlier just in case.

Frank stops in his tracks a few paces away from the strange girl and stands there uneasily in the downpour waiting for her to speak. She’s watching him steadily, her gaze giving nothing away, and he feels like she is the one in control here. Either she knows more about what's going on than he does or she's at least dealing with it better than him and he wonders how long she’s been standing here. A flush of embarrassment colors his cheeks as he realises that she probably saw him crying on the steps just now. Great.

The girl still says nothing and some of the customers in the juice bar next to the alley are staring at them through the window, obviously wondering why they're standing out in the rain without umbrellas. Looking awkwardly down at his feet, Frank clears his throat, rain dripping into his eyes, and when the silence becomes truly unbearable it's the girl who finally breaks it.  
“So who are you?”  
Her voice is calm but Frank can hear a tremor of anxiety running just below its surface. A cold breeze blows across the piazza and chills his wet skin, making him shiver and start coughing. The burns on his arm are stinging like crazy and his eyes are blurry with salt-water. Swallowing nervously, he takes another step towards the young woman and this time she flinches away and her hand tightens on something in her pocket. For one horrible second he thinks she’s going to pull a gun on him and he stops in his tracks, his heart pounding, and puts his hands up. “Frank,” he blurts, his voice drowning in the rain, “My name's Frank and I’m not gonna hurt you.”  
“I might hurt you,” the girl retorts, her eyes flashing, and he knows she means it. An icy shudder runs through him as the memory of those eyes dying bloody and mutilated comes flooding back: her murdered body falling to the blood-soaked ground where he is chained up and helpless, choking on the warm red river of her death…

“Hey, are you okay?”  
Frank blinks and drops his hands to his sides. The girl is still watching him but her wary expression has melted into concern. “I’m fine,” he croaks, shivering badly as the stench of blood fills his nose and mouth. Oh god, she’s already seen him cry today, he doesn't want to throw up in front of her too!  
“Are you sure?” the girl asks, “You look weird.”  
Frank nods and swallows hard, waiting for the nausea to pass, “I’ve had better days.”  
His cell phone suddenly rings, making him jump and the girl smirks. Frank blushes and grabs the phone from his wet pocket, answering the call without checking the ID. “Hello?”  
‘Frank, where the fuck are you?’  
It’s Gerard and he sounds pissed off.  
“Hi Gee, I’m... uptown I think? Sorry.”  
‘You can’t keep disappearing on us, man. Are you outside? It sounds like you're outside. It's raining cats and dogs!’  
“Look, Gerard, I’m gonna have to call you back.”  
‘What? No, wait!’  
Frank hangs up and turns back to the girl. “Sorry.”  
She sighs and looks up at the stormy sky as if she’s only just noticed it’s raining. “My name’s Lorna,” she admits quietly, “Let’s find somewhere dry to sit down, Frank. We need to talk.” 

***  
There's a small diner on a quiet street two blocks away, a 1950s themed place decked out in pink and pastel-green with a silver serving counter, mini jukeboxes on the tables, and staff dressed up like extras from ‘Grease’. The rain is apparently bad for business here because the only other customers in the joint are an elderly couple sipping vanilla milkshakes by the ice cream machine. Frank feels awkward and out of place here but Lorna seems entirely at ease, exchanging smiles with a plump lady behind the counter and leading Frank over to a small table in the back.  
“So,” she begins, placing her hands palm down on the plastic table-top, “You recognize me don’t you. At the accident I could tell by the look on your face that seeing me freaked you out.”  
Frank nods slowly, scratching the sopping wet bandage on his arm, and Lorna thinks about this for a moment, tucking strands of damp blond hair behind her ears. “Well, I recognized you too, Frank, and not just from MTV.”

At his surprised look she smiles , “Yeah, I get it now. You’re in one of those metal bands right? My Chemical Fall or whatever.”  
“Romance,” Frank corrects, “But we’re not really metal...”  
“My mistake,” Lorna shrugs, “Anyway, what I'm about to say might sound crazy to you but it’s been a pretty crazy day so far so I'm just going to say it. I know your face because I’ve been dreaming about you, most nights for over a week now. I’ve watched you die, Frank, in a series of nightmares about the exact same car accident we saw happen for real today.”  
Misery and fear darken Lorna's brown eyes and Frank notices now how tired she looks under her make-up which is smudged and faded from the rain.  
“My dreams are always very real to me,” she continues softly, “And I usually know when they’re going to come true. As soon as that stupid blue truck drove into my life, I knew I had to follow it and try to stop the accident but everything happened exactly how I dreamt it would. Except…”  
“Except I'm not the one who died,” Frank finishes, “That other random guy did.”  
Lorna nods sadly, “Yeah. Details. I’ve been having these horrible dreams…well, I think premonitions is a better word for them, for about a year now. Not every night, or even every month, but they always come back eventually and show me a new disaster and whatever happens in these premonitions happens in real life, Frank, every time I swear. Storms, house-fires, my dog getting hit by a truck, my best friend’s cousin dying in a drive-by shooting! It keeps happening and I would have stopped it all if I could but the dreams are too confusing and unspecific, the settings and the victims are random, blurry... there’s no proper warning. Honestly it all seems so fucking useless!” Blinking back tears, Lorna bites her lip and stares angrily at the table, her fingers curling into fists. Frank stares at her in shock as her words sink in, still shivering as water drips from his wet clothes. 

A middle-aged waitress in a poodle skirt suddenly appears by their table with a notepad and pen and beams them a wide white smile. “Are you kids ready to order?” she asks and Lorna looks up and pastes on a fake smile of her own. “Black coffee please, and a plate of curly fries.”  
“Okie dokie,” the woman chirps, scribbling on her pad, “And for you, hon?” she asks, turning to Frank.  
“Oh, um, the same. Thank you.”  
“Be ready in five.”  
The woman sashays away and Lorna’s face falls, the look of angry despair returning as if it had never left. Frank guesses that it probably never does. She just hides it well.

When the food and drinks arrive and they are left alone again, Frank tries to explain his own nightmares to Lorna, including the gruesome role that she always plays, and she doesn’t react like he thought she would. He assumed she’d be frightened or something, seeing as how his other nightmares have already come true, but inside she just looks thoughtful. 

“I wonder if it’s actually going to be me who gets stabbed though,” she says, munching thoughtfully on her fries. “After all, I dreamt about you dying over and over again in that car crash and now it turns out it was never going to be you.”  
“So you're saying that some other poor girl is going be cut up and killed and I have no way of knowing who it's going to be?” Frank groans, “Fucking perfect. I guess that’s why in the nightmares I always know that I can’t save her, even though she’s begging me to help.”  
“Woah wait a second,” Lorna snaps, dropping a curly fry mid-bite, “The girl with my face actually spoke to you in your dreams?”  
“Yeah, she...s-screams my name,” Frank stammers, fighting to keep the awful sound of those blood-choked screams from his mind, “And I want to help her more than anything, but I’m chained down or tied up and I can’t move. There’s so much blood and it’s all over me, in my eyes and my mouth...”  
Suddenly his food doesn’t seem appetizing anymore and he pushes the plate away. The diner is warm enough for his clothes to already be drying out but he's still shivering and feels unbearably tired. Lorna seems nice but he would rather be anywhere else right now. He doesn't want his dreams to be real but here he is talking to someone who suffers from the exact same horrible thing. Why is any of it even happening though? And why him and this girl? They have nothing in common and aren't even from the same coast. Who or what the hell has decided to give them sneak previews of future tragedies? God? Satan? Aliens?! Fuck this.

His cell phone rings again and he answers it numbly on auto-pilot. “Hello?”  
‘Frankie, please don’t hang up,’ Brian's voice says quickly. Why would he hang up? Oh that‘s right, he cut off Gerard. Oops.  
“Okay.”  
‘Thanks. Listen buddy, I need you to come back to the hotel now if you can,’ Brian continues, sounding like a worried parent, ‘It’s important.’  
“Okay,” Frank says again, too exhausted and confused by the day’s events to say anything else.  
‘Great, cool,’ Brian sounds relieved. ‘I’ll be waiting in the lobby. Bye.’  
“Bye.”  
With very little feeling, Frank hangs up and sighs. Across from him, Lorna is picking quietly at her food. “You have to go now,” she says.  
“I guess so,” he mutters, rubbing his weary eyes which feel like they're full of sand. There's a powerful headache brewing in his skull and his skin feels tight and feverish.  
“I think it’s odd that the woman with my face said your name,” Lorna says, “It could mean that you do know her in real life. Maybe it’s someone you love who’s in danger.”  
“Or maybe it really is you,” Frank replies glumly.  
Lorna frowns at his bluntness. “Maybe. But dreams are abstract right? You have invisible knives in yours; I have nameless streets in mine. Perhaps we’re picking up on each other’s dreams somehow and our subconscious is getting confused and pasting our faces onto the bodies of the real victims.”  
“Who knows,” Frank sighs in annoyance, standing up to leave, “I mean, neither of us actually knows what the hell is happening to us. We can sit here and talk and guess but we don't actually fucking know anything! Maybe we're just going crazy!”  
He’s shouting now but he doesn’t care, all he wants to do is get out of this place and back to his normal life. He’s had enough of running away from his friends, and more than enough of talking about death and blood and stupid useless prophecies or premonitions or whatever. He’s too tired and it’s all too much.

Unconcerned by his outburst, Lorna rises from her chair and takes his hand firmly in hers. He stares at her in surprise for a moment until he realises that she’s also holding a pen. “This is my number,” she says, scribbling her full name and digits on his skin, “Please call me if something else happens, Frank, or if you figure out who’s really going to die. Maybe we can help each other.”  
She looks into his eyes for a moment, her expression cautiously hopeful, and adds, “Maybe we can save a life.”  
Frank shivers again and pulls his hand away, Lorna’s fingers are like ice on his skin. “Yeah. I’ll call you.”  
“Thanks. It was nice to meet you.” Her fake smile is back and Frank tries to match it with one of his own without really succeeding. “Yeah, this was really fun. We should do it again sometime.” She chuckles humorlessly at his lame joke and glances out at the rain, “The storm’s getting worse. Be careful out there.”  
Frank nods distractedly and drops some money on the table to pay for the food he hasn’t touched. “Good luck,” he mutters as he walks away. Lorna's brown eyes are heavy with sorrow as she watches him leave. “You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hello beautiful people! Next chapter will be up in a couple of days. Please comment if you are actually still reading this drabble and i will love you forever! xx))


	7. SEVEN

The storm has blown over by the time Frank finds his way back to the hotel and the rain has eased into a warm wet drizzle that makes everything sticky and damp. Trudging gloomily across the little lobby in his wet clothes, he spots Brian sitting in a chair by the elevators and immediately feels eight years old again, about to be told off by his parents for playing out past his bedtime.

Brian is holding a newspaper and talking quietly on his phone but when he sees Frank he hangs up straight away and jumps to his feet. Feeling sick and stupid, Frank shuffles slowly towards him with his hands in his pockets and wet hair falling into his eyes and Brian smiles reassuringly at him but the manager's posture is tense, as if he expects Frank to run off at any moment and is ready to chase after him. “Hey Frankie. Are you okay?”  
Frank sighs and opens his mouth to answer in the negative but his words are blasted away by a loud sneezing fit that comes bursting painfully out of his throat and blocks up his ears, making his eyes water. Ugh. He definitely caught a cold or something last night from being out in the snow. 

Brian frowns worriedly and puts a hand on Frank’s shoulder, nudging him towards the waiting elevators. The doors slide shut with a soft click and Frank sniffles and wipes his nose on his wet shirt, leaning wearily against the elevator wall as it rises through the building. Brian clears his throat nervously. “Er, Frankie I think I should warn you that Gerard and the others are waiting for you upstairs in your room. They wanna talk to you.”  
Frank glances up in annoyance and shakes his head. The last thing he needs right now is some kind of misguided intervention! “Are you kidding me?” Brian sighs, “Look Frank, I don’t know what happened earlier today but whatever’s going on I think we need to get it sorted, right? For the good of the band and especially for you. Just talk to them for five minutes, okay?”  
Frank sneezes again, his headache from earlier growing into a painful migraine behind his blurry eyes. “Fine,” he mumbles, “Five minutes.”  
Brian nods with relief and the elevator doors ping open onto a carpeted corridor. Frank braces himself and plods reluctantly towards his room, wanting nothing else but to get out of his wet clothes and swallow some painkillers. Brian calls after him, “If you need anything, just come to my room afterwards or call my cell okay? Whatever happens.”  
Frank sighs and nods over his shoulder, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other as the corridor swims and sways around his aching head. His immune system has always been shitty and he is regularly knocked for six by attacks of colds and flu but this feels like a really bad one. His hotel room door is ajar and he waits outside for a moment, not sure whether he should knock or just walk in. Then he remembers that he’s not supposed to know about the ambush waiting for him inside and shoves the door wide open. 

The first person he sees is Ray. The frizzy-haired guitarist is perched on the edge of the bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin in his hands and he shoots Frank a worried glance when he enters but says nothing, obviously expecting somebody else to speak first. Bob is sitting further down the mattress playing idly with a pair of drumsticks and he gives Frank the smallest of uncertain smiles before glancing pointedly across the room to where the two Way brothers are standing: Mikey leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and Gerard with his arms folded and a dark look on his face. 

With a nervous stomachache and a lump in his throat, Frank shuts the door behind him and in the uneasy silence the noise is deafening. His rapid heartbeat starts throbbing in his ears. He’s still wet from the rain and his nose is running so he can't stop sniffing. Ray kindly passes him one of the fluffy white towels the maid has left folded on the bed and Frank gratefully rubs his face and hair with it before wrapping it around his shivering shoulders like a cloak.  
“Where have you been?” Gerard asks in a low voice, his expression grave.  
“At a diner,” Frank mumbles, “I...went for coffee.”  
Gerard narrows his eyes, “We were IN a coffee shop when you ran away from us, Frankie. So what you're saying is that without telling anyone where you were going and just after you'd had some kind of panic attack or seizure in the street, you ran AWAY from the coffee shop we were already in to go and get some more coffee? What the fuck man, that's not even a good excuse! And look at yourself, you're soaked and your arm is wrecked. You're gonna need new bandages and… are your legs bleeding? Jesus! What are we supposed to think, Frankie? You're fucking destroying yourself!”  
Frank swallows nervously and clutches his towel. His eyes and throat feel hot and swollen and he realizes now how stupidly he's been acting. It’s true he wouldn’t have gotten lost or burned or hurt or sick if he hadn’t spent hours running away from his friends and chasing visions through the streets.

“You can’t keep running off alone to god knows where in cities you don’t know without telling anyone!” Gerard yells, his hazel eyes frustrated and fearful, “You’re acting crazy right now, man. Anything could have happened to you. I...we were so worried.”  
Frank lowers his gaze to the floor and cringes at the familiar heat of fresh tears behind his eyes. He never used to cry this often, he‘s turning into a total freak. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I don‘t know what else to say.”  
“Shit,” Gerard sighs, moving closer and lifting his arms a little like he doesn't know whether to hug Frank or hit him, “I hate worrying about you. ”

After a painful silence, Mikey walks over and adds “Don’t be sorry, Frank, just be you again. I hate seeing you like this, we all do. Will you let us get you some help?”  
“Help?” Frank asks in a small voice, stubbornly holding his tears back. They can’t make him cry.  
“You need to see a doctor,” Ray says, speaking for the first time since Frank entered the room, “About all these things you’ve been seeing and what happened in the street today. Just in case there’s something, y'know...wrong.”  
“With my brain,” Frank finishes numbly. It’s not really something he’s considered but maybe that’s what all of this boils down to. The “premonitions” and seizures or whatever they are could just be the symptoms of a brain tumor or some kind of disease. Lorna probably doesn’t even exist; she's just a hallucination too. But no wait, her phone number is still scrawled on his hand. And what about the car accident? Dozens of people saw that, not just him, and he told Gerard about it in the coffee shop before it even happened! That was real. This is real!

“There’s nothing wrong with my head,” he says slowly, trying to make them understand, “I’m not ill, guys, I’m just…like, different or something, I dunno. I know it sounds like something out of bad sci-fi but my nightmares and the stuff I see are about the future. I saw that car accident before it happened, and the girl and the fire in Chicago and the other girl I met today. I saw it all in my mind days ago! It hurts and it sucks and I hate it but it is REAL I swear!”  
“Oh Frankie,” Ray sighs, obviously not believing a word of it.  
“No, no, listen!” Frank persists desperately, “You’re my best friends, you have to believe me! The girl on the bike sees the future too, she told me so! She said-”  
“Who is this girl?” Gerard interrupts suspiciously, “It sounds like she's messing with your head.”  
“No she’s not! Please guys, I need you to have a little faith. I do need help yes, but not from a doctor or from pills. I need you to understand what's happening to me and help me deal with it. Can you do that? Can you just believe me, please?”

His band-mates silently stare at him with varying degrees of pity and disbelief and even Bob’s earlier support has obviously turned into fear for his friend‘s sanity. With a sharp stab of despair Frank realizes that none of them believe a word he‘s saying. They all think he’s crossed the line into crazytown and why shouldn’t they think that. All they can see is him falling apart. With flooded eyes, Frank turns away from their pitying looks and pulls open the door. “Wait, where are you going now?” Gerard cries, “This is YOUR room!”

***  
Brian answers his door on the first knock and finds Frank standing outside looking like his whole world just came crashing down around him. The young guitarist is so upset he can’t even speak and he's biting the clenched knuckles of his right hand so hard he’s nearly drawing blood. Brian ushers him in without a word and shuts the door. “It’s gonna be okay, Frankie,” the manager says anxiously, watching his younger friend pace back and forth in distress across the room with his hands balled into trembling fists and his eyes hidden behind his hair, “Just sit down and take it easy. I’ll talk to them. We’ll sort everything out, I promise.”  
“NO!” Frank cries, stopping his angry march and sitting down on the bed with his head in his hands. “You can't fix this, Brian! No one can fucking fix this! It's too much and it's just...I can't handle it! No one can. This shit isn't meant to happen in real life!” Brian opens his mouth to respond but before he can get a word out Frank shocks him by bursting into tears, crying so hard he's gagging on sobs as shivers shake his injured body.

Stunned and deeply worried, Brian pulls up a chair by the bed with his phone on standby to call for help, and waits patiently for Frank to cry out his fear and pain. After a few minutes he fetches a blanket to stop his friend shivering and some kleenex for his wet face. Still weeping, Frank lies down on the bed and curls up under the blanket with his face buried in the sheets, groaning and sobbing uncontrollably as misery, terror and exhaustion blind him with tears. Brian stays with him until the sun sets outside and the room grows gloomy and dark and eventually Frank’s pained sobs fade into exhausted sniffles and hiccups and then into quivering breaths that grow heavier and deeper until Brian is sure he has cried himself to sleep.

Moving quietly in the dimness, the tour manager lays another blanket on top of Frank’s sleeping body and sneaks out of the room, shutting the door behind him. As soon as he’s outside he calls the band's guitar technician and tells him to cover for Frank in the show tonight, then rounds up the rest of the band and crew and gives them strict orders to leave Frank alone tonight and let him get some rest. Finally he sits down with the tour medic and the two men talk long into the night about what might have to be done if Frank can't let go of these crazy ideas. The future is not looking good and Brian hopes that he can hold everything together until the band pulls through this latest crisis... IF they can pull through it.

***  
Deep in a nightmare sleep, Frank finds himself onstage in a massive hall packed to the rafters with screaming fans fighting to get closer to the stage. The booming sound system is thunderous and the atmosphere is electric but Frank is sweating and uncomfortable in his dark stage clothes, playing on a strange red guitar with clumsy fingers as his head throbs with sharp crippling pain, pounding louder than the music. The audience is a distant blurry mass beyond blinding spotlights and his thoughts tumble back into the darkness of his mind where grisly terrors lurk: Lorna’s face, torn up and bloodied and screaming in agony for him to help her, save her, do something, make the pain stop!

Trapped in his dream, Frank shakes his head and tries to push the blood-drenched images aside but he can't and his hands are motionless on the red guitar. Blinking through a veil of blood, he looks around and sees Gerard staring at him…Or maybe it’s Mikey. It’s hard to tell when everything’s so blurry...  
A violent wash of nausea hits his guts and he stumbles to his knees, panting and dizzy, as the stage pitches violently to one side. His guitar send a squeal of feedback exploding from the amps and the screaming crowd falls silent. The stage lights are spinning crazily up and down around him and his head hurts so much he can’t think straight. He’s dripping with sweat but freezing cold.  
“Frank are you okay?” Gerard asks into the mic.  
“N-No…fuck,” Frank whimpers, collapsing on his back as his legs give out completely and the pain in his head intensifies until he's crying with agony. Gerard runs over and kneels down next to him, laying a warm hand on his forehead, and suddenly a crowd of people are standing around them. Frank glimpses the bright yellow coat of a concert Medic before everything spins dizzily again and black shadows pour into his eyes as his whole body goes mercifully numb. 

The stage disappears, followed by Gerard and everyone else until only a single figure remains standing over him in the dark. It is the ghostly form of a woman, pale and shimmering like winter sunlight on a frosty window-pane. She is a new face, a forlorn stranger, and ice-cold drafts seep from her pale skin, chilling the air until Frank can see his breath. The rest of the world falls away and he and this woman are alone in the darkness. Her skin is ashen, her lips curled and black and her wide blue eyes are empty and so very dead. Tears of silver glass fall from her cheeks as she drifts closer to him, her arms outstretched, a dying light in a shroud of endless night. Paralysed with fear, Frank has no choice but to lie there shaking as the dead girl puts her frozen fingers on his face and presses her dry, dead lips firmly against his. A shot of icy fire cripples his body and two words explode like fireworks in his mind: ANNA FLETCHER.

***  
With a cry of terror, Frank wakes up for real on Brian’s bed and falls off the narrow mattress onto the hard floor, swamped in layers of sweaty blankets and tissues. The room is dark and quiet and Brian isn’t here. He has no idea what time it is or even what day. Gasping for breath and trembling with chills, he sits up and tries to get his bearings, wiping his soaking eyes on the sheets and groaning softly, on the verge of crying again. His aching head feels like it's split open with pain and his hair is matted to his sweaty cheeks and forehead. His chest feels hot and stuffy and choked with mucus and stifled coughs and he can't catch his breath. 

Getting slowly to his feet, he wanders unsteadily into Brian’s bathroom to get a glass of water and screams when he sees the mirror hanging over the sink. His reflection is gone, replaced by the hollow gray face of the ghostly woman, her black lips parted in a silent shriek as the words ‘ANNA FLETCHER’ splatter across the mirror in blood! Still screaming he stumbles away from the sink and hits the wall, sliding down it to the floor with his eyes screwed shut against the horror. It's not real, it's not real, it can’t be real this time! He’s AWAKE for fuck's sake!

Sure enough, when he dares to look again, the woman and the blood are gone and the mirror is back to normal. Getting slowly and shakily to his feet, he gulps a few deep breaths, trying to calm down, but his heart is in his throat and he’s shivering and sweating with hot and cold chills. Why would he see a vision of someone who is already dead? And who the fuck is Anna Fletcher?


	8. EIGHT

Leaving the bathroom light on, Frank stumbles back to bed and sits down weakly on the spongy mattress, hugging a pillow to his chest. He’s drenched in sweat but still shivering and almost starts crying again at how fucking unfair this is. He should be happy and healthy and playing with his band tonight, not seeing ghosts and sobbing in the dark. Who the fuck is Anna Fletcher and why should he care? What does any of this have to do with him anyway? His head aches so bad he can barely see so he drags himself to his feet again and leaves Brian's room in search of painkillers. Dizzy and feverish, he stumbles out into the corridor and blunders into someone near the door. “Sorry,” he mumbles, keeping his eyes on the blurry carpet.  
“Frankie?”  
Squinting through the burning white lights of a migraine Frank's surprised to see Gerard and Brian standing in front of him. The concert must be long over because Gerard is wearing pyjama pants and an old Misfits shirt and his black hair is wet from showering. Brian is still dressed but looks tired and stressed and extremely worried.  
“Shit, Frank, you look terrible!” Gerard cries in dismay, “Get back inside and lie down.”  
“I can’t,” Frank croaks, stifling a cough, “This isn’t my room.”  
“Right. Look, I'm sorry about earlier man,” Gerard sighs, wrapping an arm around his bandmate's small shoulders. Nodding his head, Frank leans woozily against the taller man for support, his sore eyes full of fireworks, and Gerard winces at the heat coming off his friend's sticky skin. “Jeez. Brian, he's burning up. I think you should call a doctor.”

***  
The My Chemical Romance tour moves on the following day but Frank doesn't go with it. He's got a bad case of the flu and until he recovers he has to stay tucked up in bed, staying in the LA home of the band's lawyer and close friend Stacey Fass. While Brian and the rest of the band head off to San Francisco, Stacey dotes on Frank like a little brother and does her best to make him well, setting him up in her spare room with a TV and playstation and bringing him a constant supply of medicine, warm drinks, ice packs, blankets, kleenex, and cups of hot soup. Determined to be rid of his traumatic nightmares once and for all, Frank also takes heavy doses of the sleeping pills Brian gave him every night and ends up sleeping through most of each morning and afternoon as well but it seems to work: his bad dreams don’t return and his health improves.

After a few days when he's feeling almost like his old self again he’s woken one morning by his cell phone vibrating on the bedside table. Reluctantly rolling over, he grabs at it with sleep-numb fingers and answers with a yawn, “Hello?”  
'Hey Frankie.'  
“Oh, hi Gee. How’s it going?”  
‘Not bad. I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner,’ Gerard says nervously, ‘I wanted to but I thought maybe you’d still be mad at me and the other guys for ganging up on you and I didn’t want to start a fight while you were sick.’  
“We’re not going to fight,” Frank says softly, sitting up against his pillows, “Not unless you want to.”  
‘Of course I don't. I’m sorry about before, I was just so worried. I still am. How are you feeling? How's...your head?’  
Frank sighs and runs a hand through his messy hair, “I’m fine. No more flu. No more nightmares.”  
'For real? Well that’s great. But, um, don't you think maybe...’  
Gerard hesitates ominously and in the awkward silence Frank picks anxiously at the healing burns on his arm, dreading what his friend might say. “Gerard, speak,” he demands finally, “What’s up?”  
‘Well it’s just that... Stacey called yesterday to update us on how you were doing and she mentioned that you’re taking sleeping pills every day now.’

A sting of betrayal stabs Frank’s heart and he flushes with unexpected anger. He’s never taken those pills in front of Stacey so how come she knows about them? Is she spying on him somehow or going through his stuff while he's passed out? A thousand paranoid thoughts crowd his mind and he suddenly feels horribly vulnerable. No wonder everyone was so happy to leave him here if she’s been reporting back to them in secret.  
“She shouldn’t have told you that,” he mumbles into the phone, “But you don't need to keep worrying about me. I’m doing okay. Plus, y’know, it’s not like any of you believed me when I told you what was wrong so maybe you should stop telling me how worried or concerned you are or whatever because it doesn’t mean much if you aren’t willing to put a little faith in me!”

‘I'm sorry,’ Gerard sounds sheepish and it takes Frank a second to realize he was shouting down the phone just now. “I’m sorry too,” he sighs, “I know how crazy I must have sounded that day.”  
‘Forget it,' Gerard says, 'But I still think you should get some professional help Frank. Suppressing your nightmares with pills might only make things worse in the end. I mean, the last time you took those meds you had some kind of seizure-dream in the street, right? What if that happens again? Or something worse?'  
Frank doesn’t reply, toying with the idea of just hanging up the phone and shutting out the truth of these words. Sighing miserably, he climbs out of the bed and opens the door to the landing, listening for Stacey. The TV is on downstairs. He can hear CNN.  
‘Frankie?’ Gerard asks in a small voice, ‘Are you still there?’  
“Mmm.”.  
‘Frank, please talk to me dude.’  
Scrubbing at his tired eyes, Frank grits his teeth in frustration, no longer wanting to be in this conversation or in this room or in this house. It’s all so claustrophobic and ugly and he wants out!  
“Goodbye Gee.”  
Snapping the phone shut without another word, he tiptoes along the landing in his socked feet and Stacey immediately appears out of nowhere on the stairs with a cheery smile. “Hi there, sleepyhead. Do you think your stomach can handle some breakfast today?”  
“Not really,” Frank mutters, rubbing at his itchy arm as he shuffles towards the bathroom. Was Stacey eavesdropping on his phone call just now? Fuck, why is he so damn paranoid? She's only trying to look after him. “Actually I’m getting kinda sick of being holed up indoors, Stace. I think I'm gonna wash up and then head out for a while.”  
Stacey's smile shrinks and a tiny crease of worry appears on her forehead, “Do you need me to drive you anywhere hun?”  
“No, I'll be fine,” Frank insists, “I just want some air, to walk around or whatever.”  
“Ok. Well, have fun I guess. Hang on, I'll fetch you a spare house key.” She disappears from sight and Frank quickly darts into the bathroom and locks the door behind him, avoiding looking in the mirror over the sink while he brushes his teeth and showers. He's lost weight while he's been ill and his cheeks are rough with stubble but he's pretty much given up on caring about his appearance. If he's not going to be up on a stage then what's the point.

When he returns to his room wrapped in a clean towel he finds a key, a glass of fresh orange juice and a note left on the bedside table. 'Gone to the office. See you later - Stacey'  
Biting his lip, he listens to the silent empty house for a moment and very faintly, on the edge of his consciousness, he can hear the sharpening of knives.

***  
The bright breezy daylight should be a nice change from being cooped up in bed with comforters and cough syrup but Frank is jittery and nervous as he walks along the warm sidewalks in the vague direction of the beach, whistling tunelessly to block out echoes of his old nightmares. He's wearing a red and black hoodie, baggy jeans and skate shoes and the Californian sun is way too hot and dazzling for winter. He misses the weather in New Jersey and reflexively runs his tongue along the NJ tattoo on the inside of his lower lip, watching the pavement dust rise under his plodding feet.

He doesn’t really know or care where he’s going, he’s just walking on autopilot, so it’s no surprise really when he walks smack into the side of a street-lamp. Stumbling backwards with hands flying to his bruised face, he flushes with embarrassment and looks around to see if anyone saw his clumsiness. Two blond high school girls giggle their way past him and a middle-aged dog-walker shoots him a sympathetic glance but other than that he’s ignored.  
Squinting in the sun, he steps carefully around the street-lamp, wishing that he’d brought his sunglasses with him. Then he remembers he lost them on the day of the car accident... and now suddenly the street he’s walking on looks strangely familiar.

With a nervous shudder that sets his heart racing, Frank realises that he is standing near the same crossing where the blue truck killed that guy last week. Everything looks normal again now and the only trace left by the tragedy is a long black smear on the road, but the sharp sound of squealing brakes comes screaming through his mind again, followed by the smash of exploding glass, and he rubs at his eyes as frantic bloody images of the accident and the dead man start to resurface as well. It’s too bright out here in the sun, he can’t take this! Nauseous and panicky, he hails the first taxi he sees and jumps in.

“Where to?” The driver asks.  
“Anywhere, I don’t care,” Frank says quickly, “Just drive, please.”  
“You got it,” the driver shrugs, and the cab peels away from the curb.  
Frank sinks back in his seat, suddenly exhausted, and watches sunbeams dance on the back of the driver’s seat. It’s stuffy in the cab and a faint whisper of claustrophobia sets his teeth on edge. Frowning miserably, he peels off his hoodie and stares out the window, trying to forget the world.

After a few minutes, a silver flash catches his eye and pulls him out of his daze. Focusing on the sight, he sees a very shiny internet café gliding into view and an idea starts to scratch in the back of his head. Telling the cab driver to pull over, Frank pays him and gets out, walking cautiously towards the café. As he pushes open the polished glass doors, a blast of ice-cool air hits him, chilling his skin, and he puts his hoodie back on. The air-con in this place is insane.   
Ordering a Coke and an hour with a computer, he Googles the name that no amount of sleeping pills has erased from his memory: Anna Fletcher. Her name brings up over a million hits but most of the first page is a list of references to a character in some old 70s movie and he's pretty sure his fever-dream wasn't about her.

Sighing, he's about to give up on searching through 1 million useless pages of junk when he spots a link to someone’s personal website, one of those little freebie sites where people post their blogs or artwork online. The site is titled ‘anna-ruth-fletcher.com’. With nothing to lose, he clicks on it and raises his eyebrows as the internet window turns black, speckled with a delicate spray of crimson stars. Grey ghost-like writing fades into view amongst the stars: ‘COME INSIDE’. Okay, slightly creepy. Frank clicks on the invitation and the screen changes to a white background slashed with brilliant streaks of crimson. The stars are here too, along with several hovering lipstick kisses and winking eyes. One very large eye appears in the center of the webpage, blinking mournfully as a loading signal flashes rhythmically in its pupil, and athough it’s just an animation he feels a shudder trickle down his spine. The eye looks dead and inhuman and reminds him of the screaming woman from the hotel mirror, glaring at him as the page loads. Finally it vanishes and is replaced by a photograph, sepia-toned and photo-shopped to look torn and frayed, and Frank gasps, choking on his drink. It’s her: the woman from his nightmare, the face in the mirror, the ghost, the corpse. She’s the owner of this website... Oh god, and he can feel her dry, dead lips clamped around his mouth again…

Bolting to his feet with his guts churning, he dashes to the Men's Room and bursts into a cubicle, collapsing to his knees on the cold tiles as acid and cola flood his mouth and his body heaves his stomach contents into the toilet bowl. Waves of terror and nausea rocket through his insides, forcing him to puke and retch until he’s left weak and trembling on the cubicle floor with his eyes blurry and his tongue soaked in bile. Shaking and sweating, he stays crouched on the smeared floor for a few more minutes, gagging and biting back tears until the fear and trauma passes. Retching a few more times with no results, he stands up unsteadily and swipes his hand across the toilet’s flush sensor, washing away the mess.

When he's cleaned up and composed himself, he walks slowly back into the café and sits down at his computer, almost afraid to look at the screen. It’s changed somewhat while he was busy throwing up. Now fully loaded, the page displays several photographs: all of them faux-aged and showing Anna with various friends at various celebrations. The pictures are surrounded by several more floating eyeballs and they hover and wink enticingly at Frank until he forces himself to click on one of them. A new page loads, much quicker than the last, and shows him a beautiful hand-painted cityscape of LA at dawn. Drifting over the lovely background are several trails of words typed in blue and his tired brain scans them cluelessly for a moment until he realises that he’s looking at a poem:

They come to me when dark night falls,  
And the stars have choked on our city’s shit.  
No lights are here to guide us now.  
We're casualties of timeless crimes.  
A million broken angels cry,  
Cry and whore and puke and die,  
Die laughing, screaming, choking, high.  
My dreams are filled with laughing dead,  
A thousand faces, a thousand fates.  
These L.A. streets are washed with red  
And I see the rain and shadows bleed.  
I know the signs but the music changes.  
The faces melt but still I know,  
I need to stay, they have to go.  
A thousand nights run red with blood  
And one more soul's gone today.  
...I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.’

Frank sits there open-mouthed reading the drifting spiralling words over and over again until a screensaver blinks on and erases them from his sight. It’s pretty obvious what Anna was writing about but he doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t want his fears and nightmares reaffirmed yet again! But his dreams led him to this website and it seems that Anna has the same nightmares as him and Lorna. She sees people die in her dreams and was apparently too late to warn at least one of them: ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.' Fuck, how many of them are there?

Searching nervously through the rest of the site, he finds several more poems, each one more disturbing then the last, where this poor girl has written about her nightmares and visions and thousands of dying ‘angels’.  
Cold all over, Frank clicks back to the page with the photographs and one of the pictures catches his eye and chills his blood stone cold. It’s a photo of Anna and a dark-haired guy a few years older than her, smiling and laughing together on the steps of what looks like some wholesome college building. The guy is Mexican and wearing a football jersey and jeans and he's smiling happily while Anna grins at him, their fingers laced together in affection, frozen forever in the photograph. Frank definitely recognizes this guy and the memory makes him want to throw up again: it's the man who was hit and killed by that blue pick-up truck last week. He was Anna Fletcher’s boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((i am going somewhere with this... ;) ))


	9. NINE

Frank sits there for a long time with his stomach tied in knots and his eyes fixed on the image in front of him until a waitress wanders over to say that his computer session will end in five minutes and would he like more time or anything else to drink? Chewing anxiously on his lip, he shakes his head and gives her back his empty glass. Five minutes. Maybe he could use the laptop at Stacey's place to carry on snooping. Looking again at the photo of Anna and her dead lover, he quickly scans the image for any clues that could tell him where it was taken or where he might find this young lady now. The steps that they’re sitting on in the picture are oddly familiar and like a bolt from the blue he suddenly remembers why: it's UCLA. This photo was taken somewhere on the UCLA Westwood campus where film-makers are always shooting teen rom-com movies and tv shows. Thank god, he's finally made some progress.

Back at Stacey's, Frank lets himself in the front door and kicks off his sneakers, glad that the house is still empty because he's really not in the mood to make small talk or pretend like everything's normal when it so obviously isn't. Smoking a cigarette to try and ease the tension building up in his muscles and head, he wearily pads across the soft carpets to his room where he locks the door and flops down on the bed, trying to formulate some kind of plan. His phone vibrates in his pocket with a text and it turns out to be Gerard checking up on him again which just makes him feel sad and lonely so he ignores it. Sighing miserably, he stubs the cigarette out in the ashtray Stacey left for him and rolls onto his stomach, pulling a pillow over his head and breathing in the comforting scent of his own warm breath and unwashed hair. A pang of homesickness burns in the back of his throat but he's not sick for New Jersey, he's sick for the band. My Chemical Romance is his whole life and he wants to be a proper part of it again. The sooner all this stupid Anna Fletcher stuff is resolved, the sooner he can forget about it and get back to doing what he loves.

There's a scrap of paper under the pillow and he grabs it and pulls it out, shaking hair and cotton fluff out of his eyes to read it over again in the warm daylight. It's Lorna’s name and phone number. On the night Brian and Gerard found him feverish and ill outside Brian’s hotel room, he was put to bed and left alone while his friends ran out to find a doctor or buy some medicine and while he lay shivering under the sheets he'd noticed Lorna’s scribbled message from the diner still there on his hand, smeared by tears and rain. Dragging his aching body out of bed, he'd found a pen and copied down her details on the back of a gig flyer before washing the message off his skin and stashing the paper in his suitcase. 

Now he makes a final decision and pockets the paper before changing into a long-sleeved collared shirt that hides most of his tattoos and rummaging through his suitcase until he finds a pair of sunglasses and his backpack, putting both on before running downstairs to Stacey's study where he grabs a local phonebook and compares the listings with Lorna’s details. Her last name is ‘Mackenzie’ so he matches the number she gave him to the right Mackenzie address and tears out the page. The sun is still blazing outside but he takes off running down the bright city streets with blood and ghosts hissing in his ears. 

***  
Lorna’s house isn’t far but when Frank finds it he loiters outside the dusty junk-filled front yard for a while wondering if he should have called first. What if she’s not home? But her rickety red bicycle is chained to the fence beside him so he guesses that's a good sign. Pushing open the rusty yard gate, he walks slowly up the concrete path and rings the bell. There is a long, long pause and he fidgets nervously on the doorstep, wondering if the doorbell is broken or something. Maybe he should knock. Then the sound of sluggish heavy footsteps approaches from behind the paint-chipped door and it eventually creaks open to reveal one of the largest, meanest looking men Frank has ever seen. This guy is a triple threat of tall, fat and muscular and he must be an ex-wrestler or something because he is HUGE, close to seven feet tall and built like a truck with a massive beer gut and immense heavily-tattooed arms bursting out of his dirty white vest. His head is shaved and his chin is thickly bearded and in one giant hand he's holding a half-empty beer bottle. The expression on his face is one of intense hostility and dislike and it's aimed squarely down at Frank who feels his jaw drop in awe and quickly forces himself to speak instead of gaping like a moron. “Um, is…does Lorna live here?”  
The huge guy narrows his eyes and turns away from the door with a rumbling sigh. “Lorna!” he bellows into the house, “Door!”  
With a final glare the man-mountain turns and lumbers off down the dim hallway inside, disappearing into a side-room from which a television is aggressively blaring. Sighing with unconscious relief, Frank shakes his hair out of his eyes and adjusts the bag on his skinny shoulders. He's sweating bullets and his old burns are starting to sting again.

Lorna looks surprised when she comes to the door. “Wow, Frank, I didn’t really think I’d see you again. I thought I might've scared you off.”  
“Nah, of course not,” Frank mumbles, blushing awkwardly. Lorna is wearing khaki shorts on her slim bare legs and a tight Get Up Kids t-shirt. Her blonde hair is pinned up in cute braids that frame her pretty pink-cheeked face and she looks good enough to eat right now. Frank clears his throat and looks at his shoes. “I found out something about my, I mean OUR nightmares,” he stammers, “I can tell you about it on the way but basically, if you want to come along, I'm going to the college campus in Westwood.”  
“Aha,” Lorna says, her eyes sparkling, “So that’s why you have a backpack. Are we pretending to be students?”  
“Do you want to come or not?” Frank sighs, feeling embarrassed for no good reason. Lorna’s expression turns serious and she nods, “If it’s got something to do with our visions then count me in. I've a friend who goes to school there so I know the place well enough to sneak around. Just let me find some shoes and stuff. Come in.”

Painfully aware of the beer-swilling giant in the living room, Frank follows her inside and shuts the door behind them. The hall is lined with peeling yellow wallpaper and littered with dusty industrial sized soup cans, toolboxes and dirty biker leathers. The whole place reeks of damp and motor oil and Frank wonders where Lorna’s dad – if that even is her dad - keeps his motorcycle.  
“Come on,” Lorna whispers, leading Frank down the passage towards a narrow wooden staircase. As they pass the living room door he glances inside and sees the big man slumped on the couch in front of the TV. “Don't worry,” Lorna says, rolling her eyes, “Dad doesn't care if I have guys around.”  
Moving quickly, she ushers Frank upstairs to her bedroom and it's bigger than he was expecting, with a double bed squeezed against one wall and a large white closet with slatted doors. The walls are papered in the same depressing yellow as the downstairs hall but Lorna's decorated them with dozens of drawings, postcards, posters and photographs. While she busies herself pulling random shoes out of a messy pile in the corner, none of which seem to match, Frank looks around at her posters and spots a couple for some obscure vintage bands he likes. “You sure your dad doesn't mind me being up here?” he asks in a whisper.  
“He doesn't give a shit what I do. Besides it’s not like he doesn’t fill the house with his biker chick whores most nights. I’m entitled to a little fun of my own don’t you think?”  
“Fun? I didn't mean that you and I should-”  
“Relax, I'm teasing.”  
“I didn’t think…” Frank trails off lamely and sits down on a wooden chair by the bed with an embarrassed smile. Lorna snickers and starts to pull on a pair of battered white tennis shoes, threading the frayed laces into little bows just as BANG: the closet door flies open, hitting the wall. Lorna jumps up in surprise as a man wearing black leathers and a motorcycle helmet storms out and stabs her in the chest with a butcher knife right before slashing her throat! Thick streams of blood spurt everywhere, splashing the walls and bed with red, and Frank screams in horror, his heart in his throat, as the attacker whirls around and lunges for him, wrapping a black-gloved hand around his neck and slamming him back against the wall. 

Struggling frantically in the silent stranger’s iron grip, Frank claws at the leather-clad fingers tightening and tightening around his neck until he can’t even breathe. His own terrified eyes are reflected back at him in the black mirror of the stranger's visored helmet and he watches them widen in pain and shock as a sharp steel blade is thrust deep between his ribs. 

Hot bloody agony rips through his body as the knife tears through his flesh and organs and the sharp scent of blood floods his nose and mouth. The killer in black jerks the knife free with a wet scrape and Frank collapses to the floor, his legs numb and his chest on fire as blood oozes through his clothes and pools quickly around his twitching body. The murderer steps back with the blade dripping in his hand, a faceless demon in the dying light, and Frank moans with pain, trying to move, to get up, but his body won’t co-operate. Blood surges up his throat and bubbles in and out of his shredded lungs and he looks up through a haze of pain and tears and sees Lorna. A river of blood is gushing from the gaping slash in her throat and her lips are turning blue as her wide eyes darken and die. The air in the room shivers and ripples with shadows and Frank can see the ghostly outline of Anna Fletcher kneeling over him and staring down with white empty eyes as he gasps his last breaths. Behind her a dozen more people – faceless and rotting – are standing still and silent like tombstones in a graveyard as everything goes dark and a numb chill starts to creep through Frank’s body. Blood floods his mouth and trickles down his chin and as the darkness takes him away Anna opens her dead mouth and screams: “It was the list! We found their fucking list!...”

"Frank, open your eyes! What the hell's going on? You’re scaring me!”  
Shivering with cold and pain, Frank opens his eyes expecting to see Death itself looming over him but all he sees is Lorna alive and whole and staring anxiously down into his face. “Frank, can you hear me? Are you okay?” she asks fearfully, laying a small warm hand on his forehead, “Talk to me, please!”  
Lost in a state of shock, Frank gasps a shuddering breath, coughing on the blood in his mouth...except of course there is no blood in his mouth now, and suddenly no more pain in his chest. It's all fading away to nothing. It was never real in the first place.

“Are you okay?” Lorna asks again. She looks scared and Frank frowns and pushes her hands aside, wondering why he’s lying on the floor now and why there are no dead people or masked murderers dressed in black to be seen. He and Lorna are alone and safe in her room and neither of them have been stabbed.  
“H-Holy shit,” he mumbles queasily, sitting up as the last echoes of pain ebb out of his body, leaving him shaken and weak, “It happened again.”  
“WHAT happened again?” Lorna cries.  
“I don’t know, another murder-dream I guess.”  
“You get the nightmares when you’re AWAKE?”  
“Kind of. It’s only happened twice,” Frank says defensively, pulling himself up onto the bed and rubbing his neck, “I think it's because of some pills I've been taking.”  
Lorna nods slowly and Frank can tell she’s wondering why he didn’t disclose this little fact to her before in the diner.  
“Alright,” she says quietly, sitting down clumsily beside him, “So who did you see dying this time?”

***  
“Oh man, this place is huge,” Frank sighs as Lorna leads him across the bustling campus of ornate sandy-bricked buildings and sports fields in the middle of Westwood. “Well yeah, what were you expecting?” Lorna shrugs, “It’s a university, Frank, not a high school. Didn’t you go to college?”  
“Not for long,” Frank mutters.  
“Well, those steps you told me about from that picture of Anna sound like the ones outside the School of Law so maybe she took some classes there.”  
“Or maybe her boyfriend did.”  
“We need a computer,” Lorna decides, glancing up at a large blue-and-gold banner fluttering over the archway of the student union, “If we want to find these people then we need to search from the inside.”

The two of them find the main library and Lorna leads the way towards a bank of computers, “My friend Abi gave me her login details so I can come here and use the internet for free,” she explains, pulling up a chair, “We can’t afford a computer at home and, y’know, it's some place to go.” Frank nods in understanding. His new friend’s homelife didn’t exactly look happy and he knows how important it is to escape from your problems once in a while. 

Once Lorna has logged into the college's intranet, she quickly scrolls down the student news pages and it isn't long before she finds something of interest. “Ah,” she whispers, “Here we go. It says here that the guy who died in the car accident we both saw last week, Anna’s boyfriend, was called Sammy Ortiz and he played football for the UCLA Bruins... Looks like he had a bright future ahead of him…” With sadness in her eyes, she opens Sammy’s memorial page and zooms in on a picture of him smiling proudly in his football uniform.  
“That’s definitely him,” Frank sighs, swallowing the ugly memory of Sammy’s corpse lying in the road, “Poor kid.”  
“And now Anna Fletcher, where are you?” Lorna mutters, opening the student residential directory. “Oh,” she comments after a few short moments of searching, “Well that's kinda obvious.”  
“What?” Frank asks anxiously, peering over her shoulder, “Where does she live?”  
“Where else would a pretty girl who’s dating a football player live? In a Sorority house.”

It's a short walk to the Kappa Pi Alpha house but before they reach it a pit of unease has already started to grow in Frank's stomach. His anxiety is only made worse when an ambulance thunders past them with sirens blaring in the quiet afternoon and they both quicken their pace and run towards the house. The sunny sky has clouded over and a cold breeze is rushing out from under the campus trees, shrouding everything in a damp leafy chill.

A large crowd of people have gathered outside the Sorority house including several girls in floods of tears, a few angry-looking guys, some older adults and a couple of cops. In the middle of it all, two paramedics hurriedly wheel a covered gurney into the back of the waiting ambulance and as Frank and Lorna slip quietly through the crowd towards the wide front porch Frank catches a glimpse inside the ambulance that makes his stomach turn. One of the medics is performing frantic CPR on the unresponsive body of a young woman and he doesn’t need to see her face to know that it's Anna and the medic can't save her. She's already dead.

A rush of guilt and despair hits him like a ton of bricks and he stops in his tracks on trembling legs, staring helplessly at the ambulance as it pulls out of the drive and speeds away. Two people have died right in front of him in less than a week and maybe he could have saved them if he’d reacted to his dreams a little quicker. If he’d only known what the hell they meant! Lorna grabs his arm and startles him out of his self-blame. “We can’t get in this way,” she whispers, “The cops’ll stop us.”  
“Why would we want to go inside?” Frank snaps miserably, “Anna’s already dead. We're too fucking late!”  
“I know,” Lorna says sadly, “But before she died I think she tried to tell you something in your dream. I bet that whatever the 'list’ is we’ll find it in her room.”

Retreating through the cluster of onlookers, Lorna takes Frank's hand and leads him around the back of the neighbouring building to a deserted garden where they quickly jump the fence and creep quietly down the side of Anna’s house, avoiding the back door and gazing up at the windows above. “The cops will be covering the front and rear doors,” Lorna whispers to herself, “And judging by the girls outside they’ve already evacuated the house. Anna's killer is probably long gone but we don’t have much time before the crime scene investigators and detectives get here. A window is our only option.”

Glancing quickly around to make sure no one can see them, Frank pulls his sleeves down over his hands to avoid leaving fingerprints and slides open the first window he sees which has been left ajar so they can slip inside. 

Anna’s room is the first one they find upstairs. The peach-cream carpet is stained with a wide pool of congealing blood and the crimson boot prints of paramedics, and several gory splatters also adorn the pale pink wallpaper. Frank shudders and averts his eyes from the mess, looking mournfully at Anna’s neatly-made bed and her study desk which is covered in papers and make-up and framed pictures of her and her friends. Lorna tiptoes over to look at the pictures. “There’s one of Sammy,” she whispers, “I guess they were still dating when he…passed.”  
Frank nods numbly and walks around the blood pool to Anna's dresser. There is an open box of beauty supplies laid out ready for use and inside are some plastic gloves for hair-dyeing. Tense with the fear of being discovered, he carefully takes a pair and puts them on to search for anything that looks like a list while Lorna hops back to the door to stand guard in case the cops return. 

Digging quickly through Anna’s drawers and papers, Frank feels an disturbing sense of unreality and wonders if he's trapped inside yet another dream that he can't wake up from. Since when did his life include breaking into murder victim’s homes to search through their personal belongings? It's like something out of a crime drama on CBS! And what if he and Lorna get caught? Tampering with a crime scene is a serious offence and he can just picture the story plastered in sadistic detail all over the rock music websites: ‘My Chemical Romance Guitarist Arrested at Murder Scene!’ To say that his life could be seriously fucked up by this would be an understatement.  
“Hurry up!” Lorna hisses from the doorway. With shaking hands, Frank shoves Anna’s photo albums aside and opens yet another drawer – the last in the dresser. There's nothing in it except a small metal box, hand-painted blue and sealed with a padlock, and there is no key. Acting on impulse, he reaches out and grabs the box and a small electric shock shoots through his glove and stings his fingers. “Ow!” he yelps, dropping it again with a clatter, “It fucking shocked me!”  
“Shhh!” Lorna hushes, her eyes wide and Frank swallows hard and gingerly leans forward to pick up the box again, glancing into the dressing table mirror as he does. Anna’s bloodied face is staring back at him. Biting his tongue to keep from screaming, Frank stares fearfully at the ghost in the mirror, dreading what she might say or do to him. But all Anna does is nod once before disappearing from sight. Convinced that whatever he’s looking for is inside this box, Frank pulls it out of the drawer, wincing as another strange shock rockets through his hand, and shoves the damn thing in his backpack before joining Lorna at the door. ‘‘Let’s get out of here.’’

The urge to run away from the murder scene is overwhelming but it would look suspicious to anyone passing by so once Frank and Lorna sneak out of the window and back over the garden fence, they walk slowly into the street as if they’ve just arrived in the area. A grave-faced policeman calmly directs them and a few other onlookers away from the sorority houses and they meekly obey, walking back down the street and eventually off the campus and into town. When they’re a safe distance away Lorna gives into her fear and breaks into a run and Frank is more than happy to join her. Charging down the boulevards, they find a bus stop and jump on the first ride back to Lorna’s neighbourhood, gasping for breath, both of them locked in a daze of relief and adrenaline. No one caught them. As crazy and fucked up as this plan was, they actually got away with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hi lovelies. To all of you who are still reading this I want to say a massive THANK YOU. Please feel free to comment and I will try to update soon. xxx))


	10. TEN

When they get back to Lorna's house it's raining in a light misty drizzle that dampens everything down like a cold sauna. Her dad is snoring on the couch in the den so they sneak past him up to her room and sit wearily on the bed. Shrugging off the thought that he shouldn’t be in another girl's bedroom while he technically still has a girlfriend back in Jersey, Frank opens his bag and tips the mysterious metal box onto the sheets. It bounces lightly and he hopes to god that it isn’t empty and he and Lorna just committed a criminal offence for nothing. 

“Okay,” Lorna grins victoriously, “I’d usually be delicate with this kind of thing but I get the feeling time is of the essence.” Opening a draw in her desk, she pulls out a rusty hammer and slams it repeatedly into the box’s tiny padlock. The lock quickly shatters and the lid springs open to reveal a small tangle of wires, metal scraps and batteries that look like a homemade security device and underneath them something small and white. Lorna pulls the plug on the batteries to avoid the same kind of electric shock that Frank suffered before and fishes out the object beneath: a single piece of folded white paper. 

“Okay” she mutters, “Well I guess that’s... list-like.”  
“Yeah,” Frank says, taking the paper from her and unfolding its smooth edges, “This is what Anna was talking about.”  
“How do you know?" "I just do." "A list of what?”  
“Names,” Frank whispers, reading quickly in the dim light. The paper is printed with a carefully typed single column of about a dozen names, some male and some female, all typed last name first like in a telephone directory, and underneath each name is an address. He only recognizes two of them. “Fletcher, Anna and Ortiz, Sam. The address under Anna's name is her Sorority house.”  
“Those guys are on there?” Lorna asks in confusion, “Why would Anna include her own details?”  
“Maybe she didn't type this thing herself,” Frank sighs, a small headache niggling in his temples, “The real question is what do all these people have in common? These addresses are scattered all over the United States. One's even in Canada.”

He hands the paper to Lorna and glances out the window at the setting winter sun. “Do you recognize anyone?”  
“I... Ohmygod, my cousin's on here! What the fuck?! Greg Patterson, Philadelphia. He was killed a few months ago in a drive-by shooting but they never caught the guy who did it. I dreamed about his death the week before but the images were vague and my dreams were more abstract back then. I didn’t warn him.”  
“I'm sorry,” Frank says sympathetically, instinctively reaching for Lorna's hand to comfort her but she flinches away and goes to the window, looking out at the sky. “Maybe Anna dreamt about Greg's death too,” she says quietly, wiping a hand across her eyes, "Maybe that’s why she and Sammy are on here. This could be a list of people who she thought were going to die.”

Frank frowns and massages his aching forehead with tattooed fingers, “So she had a vision her own death too? Damn. But how did she know the names and addresses of all the victims she dreamt about? There's no way she knew ALL of them personally. She didn't know your cousin right?”  
Lorna shakes her head. “I doubt it. Greg was in his thirties and lived in Philly all his life. He never came to California.”  
“Exactly. She can't have known them all and our dreams are just random images so how did she get their personal details? Ugh, this is so fucking confusing.”  
Lorna shrugs, “You hallucinated Anna's name in a hotel mirror didn't you?”  
“Okay, fair point, but if her ghost or soul or consciousness or whatever is really speaking to me through my nightmares how does having this list this help us? Are we meant to write to these people? It’s just a piece of paper, it can’t help us get rid of these visions or tell us why we have them...” Trailing off with a heavy sigh, Frank shuts his eyes and cups his chin in his hands, tired of all this guess-work and feeling homesick for his band mates again. His stomach hurts and he vaguely remembers that he forgot to eat today.  
“At least our names aren’t on there,” Lorna says, sitting down beside him and kicking off her shoes.

Frank nods slowly and shivers as the pain of being stabbed in his hallucination earlier resurfaces, spreading through his ribs. Staring uneasily at Lorna’s closet he half-expects a knife-wielding maniac in a motorcycle helmet to leap out at Amy moment and his blood runs cold. “There's a computer at the place where I'm staying,” he says hesitantly, “We could go there and Google these names, see what we can find out.”  
“Oh yeah, I’m sure your friend would love a random stranger hanging out in her home,” Lorna says, “And she'll probably think I'm encouraging your fantasies. It's alright Frank, you go and I’ll stay here. Call me if you find anything interesting. Although I guess you're gonna be leaving town soon huh? To go back to your band.”  
“I guess so.”  
Reaching out, she gives his arm a gentle pat and looks away, slipping a pair of fluffy slippers onto her bare feet, “If you find any clues about who killed Anna or Greg then let me know but if you don’t... maybe you should try to forget that today ever happened and get on with your life. If I could escape LA I'd be gone in a second.”

***  
After leaving Lorna's depressing house Frank wanders miserably through the streets and buys some painkillers and whiskey for his head, locking himself in a public toilet and chugging four pills with half a bottle of throat-burning liquor before he feels ready to go outside again. Every man he sees wearing black and every motorcycle roaring down the street makes him flinch and his head is spinning with unanswered questions and angry ghosts. The alcohol isn't enough to numb the cold sting of fear creeping through his gut and he's so anxious he chain-smokes five cigarettes on the walk back to Stacey's. His hallucinations could still come true and he doesn't want to die! It doesn't seem to matter anymore whether he goes to sleep or not because death is still all he's going to see. 

The sun goes down and a cold dark night smothers the smoggy sky. When he gets back Stacey is slouched on the sofa reading a magazine. “Hey Frankie. Did you have a good day?”  
“Uh huh,” he slurs under his breath, trying not to act as drunk as he feels. He should have grabbed something to eat. Shit. “But I'm wiped, Stace. I'm gonna take a nap.”  
“Are you okay?” she persists, getting up with a worried frown, “You look pale. Have you eaten? Do you want me to order some food or do you still feel sick?”  
“I'm fine, stop acting like my mom for five minutes!” Frank blurts in exasperation, booze and anxiety making his voice shake as he heads towards the stairs, “I'm FINE! Fucking perfect actually! So when you call Brian or Gerard to give them another Frank Report you can fucking tell them that!”

***  
Lorna sits alone in her room for a long time watching the daylight fade as the winter sun dips lower and lower on the dusky horizon. Darkness falls and is half-erased by the electric fire of the streetlamps which blots out the hazy, distant stars over the city of angels. Shuddering at the thought of going to sleep, she pulls on her shabby dressing gown and wanders downstairs to the grimy grey basement. Switching on the single light-bulb, she breathes in the musty scent of oil and washing powder and listens blankly to the hum of the freezer and the muted rush of cars racing through the streets above. Padding over to the ice box in her slippers, she digs out a large frost-encrusted tub of creamy coffee ice-cream and wonders if there's anything good on TV tonight. Nothing like frozen sugar and reality shows about bickering idiots to keep the Sandman away. A floorboard creaks ominously over her head and she frowns and looks up, suddenly alert. Her father's footsteps are heavier than that. Maybe it's just the wind making the house settle. Sighing softly, she slams the ice box shut and retreats upstairs. 

***  
Sick with fear and misery, Frank runs to his room and burrows under the covers with his knees curled up to his chest and the door locked against Stacey's apologies and kind words. None of it can make any difference now. He saw Anna die today, smelled the bitter tang of her spilled blood, and for all he knows he might be next! Desperately sucking down leftover whiskey until his body grows heavy and numb, he listens to the murmur of Stacey's gentle voice downstairs as she talks on the phone to one of their mutual friends and spills her worry and concern about him down the line. He has to bite his tongue to keep from calling out and letting her know he can hear everything. He's upset her with his ungrateful behaviour and the realisation floods his eyes with tears. She's his friend and it isn't her fault he's acting this way but he can't tell her the truth about what's making him so frustrated and scared when she won't believe a single word he says. Silent teardrops run down his cheeks and he angrily wipes them away, wanting to slam his head into a wall. Screwing his eyes shut as his body shivers with smothered sobs, he sees the murdered ghosts from his nightmares looming over him like statues in the dark. “Go away,” he whimpers, scrubbing at his eyes until they hurt, “Just go away. Leave me alone!”

But the dead faces remain and when he opens his eyes and turns on the bedroom light they are reflected in every polished surface and every window. People he doesn't even know covered in blood and staring coldly at him with empty eyes from their glass prisons and secret graves. “What do you want from me?” he cries desperately, “What the fuck do you WANT?” Nobody answers of course. He's just a crazy man shouting at imaginary monsters.

Grabbing the pill bottle Brian gave him last week with trembling hands, he cracks open the lid and groans when he finds out it's empty inside. No more sleeping pills to smother his nightmares into oblivion. No more escape. With a rush of icy wind, Anna Fletcher's corpse appears next to him on the bed and in the back of his mind he hears Lorna's voice screaming his name as a dozen knives slash her body to pieces and he can't make it stop!

Jumping up with his heart racing in panic, Frank wipes his eyes on his shirt and stumbles around the room, grabbing his coat and wallet and then climbing drunkenly out of the window to avoid Stacey, sliding down the drainpipe and landing clumsily on the soft lawn below. With a dizzying crowd of ghosts still swirling madly in his head, he lights up a fresh cigarette and heads back into town.

The city is dark and wet and inbetween the shining clusters of shops and neon lights the stink of sodden garbage streams from every alleyway. Frank walks until he's half-sober, rain soaking his hair and skin and running down his coat collar and into his sneakers, but the ghosts in his mind won’t leave and Anna Fletcher has become a constant presence walking the dirty streets beside him. She is as fragile as a spider’s web and invisible to everyone but him and Frank tries his best to ignore her but she’s there whether he looks at her or not. His head throbs behind his bloodshot eyes and he’s so hungry and wasted he can barely see straight until a flash of silver brightens the sidewalk and he's surprised to find himself outside the internet café he visited yesterday. It’s still open and he wanders blindly inside, shivering in the permanent chill of the building's souped-up air conditioning and wishing he had the company of somebody alive.

Sitting down wearily by a computer, he orders and forces down a bagel and some black coffee and then pulls Anna’s crinkled paper list out of his jeans pocket. In high school he once had a friend who got expelled for violating internet guidelines - aka illegal hacking – and he'd learned a thing or two from that guy about breaking into restricted databases. Within an hour he manages to find newspaper reports, medical records or police data for everyone on the list and the results aren't exactly encouraging. Every single one of these people has died violently within the last year – most recently Sammy and Anna - and the exact circumstances of their deaths are still unresolved. And it gets worse: several of them were on medication for insomnia or anxiety and the youngest ones wrote online blogs or MySpace posts before they died about intense nightmares, fear of going to sleep and the knowledge of future disasters before they happened. It all sounds horribly familiar and Frank's heart sinks with every word he reads:

**‘...I know it sounds ridiculous and everyone thinks I’m lying but I KNEW that building was going to collapse, I knew it and you didn't listen. Fuck you all...’**

**‘...My mom says it’s only bad dreams but it feels so real. I’m bleeding in the street, dying in a cold, dark place and I don’t know where I am! It’s so real…’**

**‘...I had another episode today, right in the middle of Science class. It was so humiliating. Simon will never look at me now. I'm such a freak! It was a bad one this time. I saw a man in black putting a gun to my head and then everything went dark. Dr. Weissman wants to increase my medication but it isn’t helping and I don't know what else to do...’**

The blogs go on and on like this and Frank reads them all with increasing panic. All of these people were like him and Lorna and Anna. It turns out that even Sammy had trouble sleeping. Maybe Anna was dating him because he was a kindred spirit. 

Sinking back in his seat, Frank runs a shaking hand through his hair and swallows the rising panic in his throat. His chest is tight with dread and he can barely breathe. All of these people had premonitions about world disasters and murders and now all of them are dead. Someone is clearly hunting them down and killing them! But how? Why? 

The dream-memory of the masked attacker’s knife slicing through his chest replays again and again in his mind and his heart hammers faster and faster as a strange hot wetness begins to spread across his skin under his shirt. Looking down he sees a river of blood seeping through his clothes and jumps out of his chair with a hoarse cry of terror, knocking a tray out of a passing waitress’s hands. Two glasses of vanilla milkshake shatter on the tiled floor and Frank opens his mouth to apologize but he can’t find enough air in his lungs to speak. His vision is starting to black out at the edges. 

Crimson blood oozes and pours from his chest, dripping onto the floor and mixing in dark swirls with the milkshake but the waitress doesn't react to the gore, sighing softly and bending down to pick up the broken glass. Frank stares at her in shock as she sifts through the puddle on the floor, looking in confusion at her bored, passive face until he realizes that she can’t see the blood. All she sees is broken glass and spilled shake. People all over the café are glancing over with the same bored expressions. None of them can see the blood!

Then Anna reaches out and strokes Frank’s face, her thin corpse fingers like ice, and he screams and runs out into the street, panting desperate gulps of cool night air into his aching lungs as the hallucinated blood dries up and disappears. The list is crumpled into a sweaty paper ball in his trembling fist. Whoever killed all these people will most likely find him and Lorna too and Anna’s death means that the murderer is already in L.A. “Fuck!” he gasps, staggering to the edge of the curb and raising his hand to hail a cab. That waking nightmare he had in Lorna’s bedroom was real - she’s going to die and so is he if he can’t stop this. He has to warn her! When a taxi finally stops, he jumps in and chokes out the name of Lorna’s street, shivers of fear rattling his body. The driver speeds carelessly through the night and Frank sits on the edge of his seat surrounded by weeping ghosts, hoping and praying that he's not too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hi guys! Sorry for the delay. I went to Europe for a week on holiday but I'm back now and I'll try not to ever leave it this long between updates again. Hope you're still liking. I'm going to bring Gerard back soon. Comment what you want to happen next... xx))


	11. ELEVEN

The taxi pulls up with a jerk at the curb, its wheels splashing in the gutter, and Frank jumps out quickly and overpays the driver. He shivers in the cold night as the cab speeds away, kicking up rain, and leaves him standing there alone on the wet pavement. Anna's ghost has disappeared from sight but he can still feel her angry black eyes crawling on his skin.

Lorna's house stands dark and quiet in front of him. All the lights are off and he wonders if anybody's even home. Cautiously, he opens the chain-link gate and slips through into the front yard. Lorna's bicycle is waiting in the shadows and the sight of it makes him feel a little better. When he reaches the slippery front steps though he sees that the door is ajar.  
"Shit," he whispers, reaching out to touch the cold chipped door with his fingers and jumping back when it creaks loudly in the quiet. Maybe he should call the police. This is looking horribly ominous so before he goes inside he texts Lorna’s address to Stacey. She won't understand the message or even look at it tonight while she's off the clock but someone has to know where he is. Just in case…

The door squeaks again and Frank tells himself that it's just the breeze. It's just the breeze. But the air is still and cold and soaking wet. With a deep anxious breath he pushes the door open wide and walks into the pitch dark hallway.  
"Lorna?" he calls softly, licking his dry lips, "Hey...Lorna? Uh, Mr. Mackenzie?"  
There is only silence.

Feeling his way down the narrow damp hall in the dark, Frank stumbles over toolboxes and gas cans and then something large and heavy blocks his path and he trips over it, landing heavily on the old floorboards in a pool of something wet and thick and slippery…blood?  
"Fuck!" he gasps, scrambling away in panic until his back hits a wall and a tower of empty paint cans crashes down around him. It's blood, it has to be, and he's covered in it! A wave of nausea heaves through his stomach and acid rises in his throat as he fights down the urge to be sick. Trembling as his stomach turns, he puts his wet hands to his mouth without thinking and smears the blood all over his face. Except, wait a minute... it doesn't smell like blood. Actually it's a lot more like…nervously licking his lips, he tastes coffee ice cream. Melted ice cream? Why the fuck is it all over the floor?  
Crawling blindly towards the thing that tripped him with shadows filling his eyes, he touches it gingerly. It's a stool tipped over on its side. “Lorna!” he hisses again, fear making his voice crack.

Then a long creaking groan echoes through the blackness and Frank feels the tremor of heavy footsteps – definitely not Lorna's - shake the floorboards under his knees. Freezing in fear he listens to the empty air and over his thundering heartbeat he detects the hoarse rasp of someone else's breathing.  
Staying as still as he can on the wet floor, he bites his lips shut and tells himself that if he can't see anyone in the pitch black darkness then whoever's lurking around can't see him either.  
Seconds crawl past and blood roars in Frank's ears and his chest aches. He's holding his breath. The footsteps trudge closer and closer and the floor creaks and shifts just a few feet away now. A burning throbbing pain starts to rage behind Frank's eyes and the black darkness around him suddenly turns red, speckled with the blinding white stars of a migraine headache. The stranger in the dark is so close now that he can smell their musky stink of sweat and leather and oil. Motorcycle leathers...?

The image of the helmet-clad murderer from his nightmare explodes across Frank’s mind again, filling his vision until it's all he can see and his body trembles as Anna's ghost screams and the silver flash of a knife flies at his face! Bright, searing pain erupts in his chest and he's bleeding. He's dying!

The next thing he knows, he's waking up on his back on sticky floorboards with the echo of his own screams hovering in the black air and a large leathery hand clamped over his mouth. Well that was a fucking perfect time for a vision.  
Another large hand grabs the front of his jacket and cruelly jerks him to his feet and the choking smell of wet leather grows stronger. He flinches in terror as the cold touch of sharp steel touches his neck.

"Make any more noise and I'll slit your throat!" a gruff voice snaps in the dark, “Understand?”  
Frank nods urgently, swallowing a whimper of panic, and the hand on his mouth moves down to his chest and shoves him roughly back against a wall, holding him there while the steel blade bites into his skin.  
"I've got him," the stranger announces to the shadows, "Hit the lights!"  
There is a sharp click and the hallway lights flare on, half-blinding Frank in the glare. When his eyes adjust he sees the man crushing him against the wall is the leather-clad biker in a black helmet from his nightmare about Lorna's closet and he bites his tongue so hard it bleeds to keep from screaming.

Squeezing his eyes shut as terror shivers along his limbs like an electric shock and his heart leaps up his throat, Frank tries to convince himself that he's still asleep, that this is just another dream, but it's not and he knows it. It's all very fucking real! His weak stomach spins and his hands are shaking as cold sweat runs down his back and prickles his forehead. He’s going to be sick...

"Shut the door!" his attacker barks, voice muffled by the helmet hiding his face. Frank swallows the rising acid in his mouth and opens his eyes in time to see another man, huge and bulky in a dirty vest and jeans, stumble past and shut the front door with a dull slam. It’s Lorna's father.  
"Dave, who is this guy?" the mysterious biker asks, pressing Frank so hard against the wall that his ribs ache. Lorna's dad - Dave - shrugs and looks blankly at Frank with yellow eyes, "I don’t know his name,” he slurs, “He’s my kid's friend I guess."  
"Is he like her?" the biker asks, flexing his gloved hand dangerously on the handle of the knife pressing against Frank's jugular, “Does he see the future?”  
"Maybe. I heard him yelling in her room today kinda like he was just now. Talkin' about blood and bein' stabbed so, er... maybe."  
"Mhmm," Frank mumbles before he can stop himself, his head spinning. The biker snarls and smacks his face, “Shut up!"

"What are you gonna do with him?" Dave McKenzie asks flatly. He’s holding a half-empty bottle of whisky. "The same as your girl," the biker snickers gleefully, grabbing Frank’s hair and slicing the knife blade lightly across his throat, making a shallow cut in his skin. Frank groans softly with fear as blood trickles down his neck. Why did he come here alone tonight? This was so fucking stupid!  
"Fine," Lorna's father mutters, "But do it in the basement with her and you better get rid of the bodies after. I can't have a huge mess of blood right inside my front door where anyone could see it."  
The biker bristles with annoyance and snarls behind his helmet. "I don't appreciate you telling me how to do my work, Dave," he hisses dangerously, "You're lucky I’m not gonna kill you too, you fat fucking loser."  
"Hey, now w-wait a minute," Dave stammers, his stubbled face paling with fear, "You said that if I let you have my kid you and your boss would leave me alone!"  
"It wasn't a promise," the biker snaps, "If your daughter gets the visions maybe you do too..."  
"I don't!" Dave cries, his bloodshot eyes wide with terror, "I swear, I n-never have! Please, just leave me alone!"

There is a tense silence during which Frank tries to breathe deeply and not vomit. He's going to die here. This psychopath is going to fucking stab him to death! He can already feel the echoes of future pain in his shaking body. Ohgodohgodohfuckohfuckohfuck!  
The biker shrugs lazily and rolls the knife between his fingers. "Fine," he says, "I have a lot of work to do, Dave, so get lost.”  
The fear in Lorna's father's eyes turns into pathetic gratitude. "Yes sir," he grovels, running out the front door and slamming it again behind him.  
"Fuckin' idiot," the biker mutters behind his visor. "Now," he add, turning his attention back to his prey, "What's your name, kid?"  
"F-Frank," Frank gasps tearfully, knowing that it's pointless to lie.  
"Alright Frankie boy, answer me this: do you already know what's going to happen to you tonight? Have you seen it and felt it and BLED it before in your mind?"  
"Y-Yes," Frank whimpers, clenching his fists to try and stop his hands shaking.  
"Good boy."

Grabbing a fistful of Frank's hair, the masked biker tugs his head forward and brutally slams it back against the wall. Agonizing white light explodes behind Frank's eyes followed by a rush of gray and the impact of a dozen floorboards hits his body as he collapses to the ground. Shadows and stars spin crazily around and around in his eyes and a warm wetness trickles down his scalp. Sobbing with pain, he tries to move his hands towards his pounding head but they won't move.  
"Good boy," the killer says again and his low voice shudders and rattles through Frank's agonized brain like distant music as the world falls away into nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hi everyone, realized I hadn't updated for ages but I hadn't finished  
> the original long chapter I wanted to put here  
> so here's a shorter one with a cliffhanger instead *evil laugh*  
> Next update will be within a few days as it's almost done!  
> What will happen to poor Frankie??? xx))


	12. TWELVE

A harsh, metallic scraping noise claws its way into Frank’s drowning consciousness and with an effort fuelled mostly by fear he drags his heavy eyes open, regretting it when the tiny movement splits his head in half with sharp daggers of pain. A wave of dizziness lurches through his insides and vomit floods his mouth and sprays his chin as an ocean of darkness swims and sways around him. Stinging cold sweat drenches his skin and his pulse pounds with dread as he remembers being attacked and then the darkness refuses to go away and he realizes in a panic that he's been blindfolded. He can't see a thing!  
Whimpering as his agonized head throbs and his cramped muscles send pins and needles trickling through his limbs, he feels the pressure of a hard cold floor underneath his body and a rough piece of cord binding his wrists together behind his back. His fingers are numb and from the tingle of chilled air on his arms he must have been stripped of his jacket and jersey. As the dizzying sickness in his stomach fades to a more bearable level he takes a weak shuddering breath and smells musty clothes and motor oil. Where the hell is he?

The rhythmic scrape of metal on metal grows louder and he feels a soft breeze of movement and the vibration of footsteps as a low voice rumbles through the darkness, “Awake at last.”

More movement, and then a heavy booted foot viciously kicks him in the ribs, flipping him onto his back and knocking the air out of his lungs. Coughing up bile, he spits blindly at the person standing over him and another hard blow lands on his chest but he manages to gasp out a few words first, “Who are y-you?”  
“Doesn't matter who I am,” the voice of the masked biker spits, “But you and your little girlfriend have been running around sticking your noses into my business and it's time for you to pay for that.”  
“My...girlfriend? You m-mean Lorna? Lorna!”  
“She can’t hear you,” the biker mutters, “But she’s been telling me all about you, Frankie boy, and about that list you found. It was a copy of MY list you little bastard. My list of ‘receivers’ - people who see the darkest parts of the future when they close their eyes at night, and a very powerful man trusted me with that list and told me to dispose of everyone on it. A kid named Sammy stole it from me the first time I tried to kill him and he gave it to his girl Anna the day before I chased him into traffic and finally got his ass dead. I had to contact my boss to get another copy and do you know what that cost me, you little cunt? Do you?!”  
Another kick, much harder this time, and Frank chokes in shock as one of his ribs creaks and fractures. He can barely breathe it hurts so much.  
“You and Lorna Mackenzie are ‘receivers’ too,” the killer growls, “Two of the last in North America, and you were so hard to track down your names weren’t even on the old list Sammy stole. But I found her and now you've practically fallen into my lap. You will both die screaming tonight and I won't make it quick. You two are gonna pay for all the trouble I've gone to. Fuckin' kids...”  
“I'm n-not a kid,” Frank wheezes, his chest crippled with pain as he struggles to catch a breath.

The killer snorts in amusement and then the scraping noise starts up again and moves further away along with his footsteps. Frank tugs frantically at the rope binding his wrists together, wincing as it only digs deeper into his skin, and drags some cold air into his battered lungs. His bones ache and he's getting dizzy again. Biting the inside of his cheek, he uses the pain he is able to control to stay conscious. “W-Why are you doing this?” he pants fearfully.  
The biker cackles, “Because my boss doesn’t want you little freaks to see any of the things he has planned for this great nation of ours. You can see future disasters and deaths before they occur and the boss is a guy who makes a fuckload of money from suffering and death. Freaks like you are a risk to his entire operation. I have to kill you because you might know too much.”

A sudden rush of heat hits Frank’s bare skin as rough hands pull him up into a sitting position against a damp wall and the cloth covering his eyes is yanked away. Dim light floods his vision and a windowless basement comes into focus behind the horrific sight of the killer from his nightmares kneeling over him. Every muscle in his bruised body tenses with terror and his heart is racing so fast it feels like it'll burst through his chest.

Then two razor-sharp bowie knives plunge into view as the biker moves the blades in front of his victim's petrified face and scrapes them loudly together. “No! P-Please!” Frank begs desperately, blood freezing in his veins as his eyes flood with tears, “Don't kill me, PLEASE!”  
“I don't like begging, boy, and no one is gonna hear you scream down here so you might as well shut the fuck up and face death like a man.”

Sick with terror, Frank shrinks back against the wall, cramming his trembling hands into the concrete. His pounding head is spinning and he's gasping for breath but all the air seems to be trapped inside his throat in a bitter acidic ball. Desperately, he tries to pray in case there's a god up there but his mind stumbles over a half-forgotten prayer from Catholic school and turns it into gibberish. Will dying hurt a lot? Fuck, he knows from his nightmares that it really, REALLY will!

Laughing sadistically, the killer lunges forwards and stabs a knife deep into each of Frank’s thighs, yanking them free again in two sprays of blood. Howling in shock and pain, Frank jerks back against the wall and smacks his head on the bricks as crimson blood soaks through his jeans. Any last hope of survival he might have had is slaughtered in an instant and he bursts into tears of agonized despair.

The killer snorts behind his visor and rocks back on his heels, wiping the knives clean with a torn dishrag. “Calm down man,” he grumbles, “I didn’t hit an artery and you ain’t going to die right this minute. I'm gonna make sure it's a very long process.”  
Sobbing brokenly, Frank curls up in a quivering mess on the hard floor as warm sticky blood pools around his legs and the world shrinks down to this one tiny room and the last things he'll ever see.  
The killer stands and walks away, his heavy boots echoing across the basement floor. “Hey,” he hisses, “Quit crying and look over here.”  
Gritting his teeth against the pain throbbing through his legs with every heartbeat, Frank shakes his sweaty hair out of his eyes and looks up. The biker is standing next to a heap of sackcloths beside a fridge on the other side of the room and once he knows Frank is watching he bends down and yanks the cloths aside to reveal...  
“Lorna?” Frank croaks shakily, tears sliding down his cheeks, “Lorna…?”  
She's lying perfectly still on the basement floor, either asleep or dead, dressed in a white nightdress and pyjama pants stained with coffee. Her hands aren't tied and she doesn’t have any visible injuries. Yet. Swallowing snotty lumps of tears, Frank looks away and wipes his dripping face on his shoulder, wishing he had been smart enough to figure out this whole fucking mess ages ago instead of making it worse.

As if on cue, shadows start dancing and flickering in his eyes and the basement shimmers and slips away as the smell of blood rises to the stomach-churning level of a slaughterhouse. Lorna appears in the center of a cold gray floor under a crimson spotlight of disaster and the bowie knives come for her like demons, chopping and hacking at her flesh until she’s a bloodied ruin. A river of gore turns the rough floor red and she screams her guts out. Shrieking in agony and terror. “Frank do something! Help! Fucking HELP ME!”

“Fuck,” he gasps, “No, it’s not happening, it’s NOT happening!”  
“What are you whining about?” the masked biker snaps, nudging Lorna’s sleeping body with his boot, “Are you seeing things again, kid?”

Nodding woozily as the dank basement air catches in his aching chest, Frank spits at the floor and his saliva is stained with blood. He's bitten through his tongue. Fresh salt-water swells in his eyes and he has to shut them to blink the tears away in useless trickles down his cheeks. His injured legs are growing cold and clammy in a layer of blood-soaked denim as life oozes from his torn skin, red and wet and hurting. He should have tried harder to make Gerard or Brian or even Stacey believe him and maybe he wouldn't have ended up in this mess!

Then suddenly, somewhere, a cell phone starts to ring.  
Frank recognizes the ringtone as his own phone and a spark of hope lights inside him but is quickly snuffed out when the killer marches over to where his jacket is strewn across an old workbench several feet away and picks up the ringing object. Peering at the screen through his helmet he chuckles. “So who is this ‘Gerard’ guy, huh? Is he your boyfriend Frankie? Cos he already called twice while you were sleeping.”  
Without waiting for an answer, he carelessly drops the phone on the concrete and stomps on it until there’s nothing left but shattered plastic and broken circuit-boards.  
“No one is coming to save you, Frank,” he growls, marching back over with a knife pointed right at his victim's face, “Do you hear me? Say it!”  
“N-No one’s coming to s-save me,” Frank whimpers, pain ripping at his throat as the killer slices a long shallow cut through the tattoos on his left arm. "Say it again, louder!" “No one's coming to save m-me!”


	13. THIRTEEN

Evening turns into endless night and a gold moon rises over the city of angels. Stacey goes to bed early and is awoken sometime after eleven when the musical ring of her phone interrupts her dreams. Groping sleepily across the nightstand, her fingers find the tiny object and she lifts it to her face, drowsily checking the caller ID. Gerard Way. Sighing softly she pushes the answer button. “Hey hun. Is everything okay?”  
‘Hi Stacey. Sorry to call so late but, erm, is Frank around? He's not answering his cell phone.'  
Stacey yawns and sits up, switching on the bedside lamp. Rain is hammering on the windowpane outside. “I think he's in his room Gee. He came home drunk and pretty much went straight to bed. When I knocked on his door to see if he was hungry he didn't answer so I guess he's sleeping. Why?”  
'Honestly, I've been really worried about him with all the crazy shit he's been through and the last time we talked I just got this super bad feeling,’ Gerard rambles anxiously, ‘Today we had a break from the tour and, uh, well I sorta got on a plane to L.A before I knew what I was doing. I’m actually outside your house right now. Uh, surprise? I was kinda hoping you or Frankie would like some company but if you don’t that’s cool. I can go find a hotel, I just…’  
“You really want to see Frank,” Stacey translates, smiling to herself.  
‘Yeah,’ Gerard admits, ‘And y'know I wanna see you too, obviously. I mean_’  
“It’s okay, Gee.”  
‘I love you both you know that.’  
“I know. I love you guys too. I'd do anything for you little idiots. Hang on a minute and I'll come and let you in.”

***  
Wiping rain and smears of last night's eyeliner from his face, Gerard sighs and hangs up, leaning against Stacey's porch to check his missed calls and inbox for the hundredth time tonight. There’s still no word from Frankie. Softly banging the back of his head against the bricks, he takes a deep breath to relieve some of the tension in his mind but it doesn’t make him any less worried. It isn’t like Frank to act so paranoid and aggressive. There must be something making him this way. Something that’s got him so scared he can’t think straight. Maybe the poor guy's become hooked on prescription pills now or even something stronger. It might explain a few things. Pushing ugly thoughts aside, Gerard curses himself for not trying harder to talk to Frank about all of this sooner… and for not listening when he did try and explain, no matter how crazy he sounded.Redialling his friend’s number again as a light flickers on in the house, Gerard expects to hear the same unanswered dial tone he’s been getting all night but instead there's an automated voice recording telling him the line is no longer in service. What the fuck?  
Frowning, he redials but the message is the same: Frank’s phone is no longer in service. Something's wrong. 

“Stace, come on,” he yells, banging impatiently on the door until it opens to reveal Stacey in her dressing gown with a bemused look on her face, “Calm down, Gee. Give me a chance to_”  
“Are you sure Frank's in his room?” Gerard asks urgently, moving into the house and dumping his small suitcase in the hallway, “Have you checked?”  
“No, I'm not a prison warden,” Stacey mutters, frowning as she shuts the door behind him, “His keys are still here though.”  
Pushing past her, Gerard runs up the stairs and she follows reluctantly, pointing him in the direction of Frank's room as butterflies flutter in her stomach. Gerard turns the door handle but it won't open. “It's locked,” he sighs and knocks frantically on the smooth wood veneer, “Frankie! Are you in there? Are you okay?”  
Grimly pressing her lips together, Stacey fetches a spare key and unlocks the door, swinging it open and flipping on the lights. The room is deserted and the unmade bed is empty. The window is wide open and Frank is gone. “Oh... shit.”  
“Why would he sneak out? Where the fuck is he?” Gerard cries, his hazel eyes shining and scared, “Has he called you?”  
Shrugging edgily and wishing she was still asleep, Stacey checks her phone and realizes that she did in fact receive a text message from Frank a little while ago. “Hmm. Apparently he sent me a text. Some random street address. I don't think I know it. Maybe he sent it to me by mistake. He's probably still wasted.”  
Gerard spins to face her, holding his own phone in a white-knuckled grip.“He sent you a text from his cell? When? All I'm getting is an out of service message.”  
“Couple of hours ago. I was sleeping. Gerard, you’re scaring me. What do you think is going on?”  
“I don’t know,” Gerard groans, pacing anxiously around the bedroom, “But it's bad, I know it. We have to find him!”  
“Okay, calm down. I'm sure he's fine. Let me get dressed and we'll go look for him.”

***  
Floating in sweet unconscious oblivion, Frank is drifting slowly upwards to a place of soft, calm white. Everything is quiet up here and nothing hurts anymore. There’s no more blood or pain. No knives and shadows. He’s safe here, he‘s alright. Numb and unfeeling. Floating forever. The cruel awful world fell away and seems so distant now, faded and blurry and dimming into nothingness. He is nothing and nowhere at all...

“Wake up!” an angry voice barks in the void, shattering Frank’s fragile serenity as something hard slams like a dead weight into his face. A searing flash of red explodes across the soothing white and rips it away and a hurricane of fire and darkness seizes him and drags him back down into the world... back into the basement... back into agony and dirt...

Another crushing blow hits his face and hot, bitter blood floods his mouth and dribbles down his throat. Coughing and choking, he hears himself howl like a wounded animal as needles of pain stab him in the chest and arms and legs – especially his legs - and it hurts so much he wants to die! The floor under his battered body is slimy and cold and his skin is caked in sticky crusts of drying blood. The sharp pressure of bruised ribs cripples his lungs and voice and he can hardly fucking breathe. His eyes are closed or swollen shut and he can't get them open. Why can’t he see? Knives and monsters live in the dark and if he can’t find a light they'll come and slash him to shreds!  
“WAKE UP!” the voice bellows again, “I’m not finished with you yet!”  
With a focused effort Frank manages to crack open his heavy eyelids and a low growl of pain escapes his throat as he rolls onto his side and coughs up a glob of crimson saliva. Stale dusty air wheezes in and out of his aching lungs as broken sobs shake his injured body. He must have blacked out after that last beating. Ohgod, it hurts so much...  
“Good boy,” the cruel voice mutters, “For a minute there I thought you were going to miss the best part of the show.”

Shutting his eyes on the faceless black helmet glaring down at him, Frank grits his teeth against the pain in his chest and begs through bloody lips, “If you’re gonna kill m-me just kill me. Just m-make it stop...”  
“All in good time,” the masked biker snarls, “But if you don’t open your fucking eyes right now I will GUT your girlfriend!”  
“No!” Frank wails, opening his eyes and looking around for Lorna in panic. Through dazed double vision he sees her sitting wide-awake against the fridge across the room crying quietly into her cupped hands. Her wrists are now bound tightly together with cord but there's not a scratch or bruise on her.  
“Leave him alone!” she begs in a hoarse, trembling voice, “Please, PLEASE stop hurting Frank, he hasn't done anything wrong! Whoever you are, you don't have to do this and you know it. You could just walk away and let us go. We haven't seen your face and we won't tell anyone, I swear!”  
The biker snickers and rubs his hands together, peeling dried flakes of blood from his gloves. “Sorry girlie,” he grunts behind his visor, “It's either your heads or mine.” Pacing lazily back and forth between his two victims, he raises the stained knife he's been using to cut Frank's arms and points it at their frightened faces in turn, moving it back and forth, back and forth. “Eenie...meenie...minie...mo!” he growls, thrusting the blade towards Lorna. “Say goodbye to your boyfriend because it’s time for your final bow!”  
Speechless with terror, Lorna cowers open-mouthed as the killer grabs her by the neck and drags her to her feet in the middle of the room with his butcher knife poised to strike.  
“NO! DON’T!” Frank cries, struggling to get up but held down by injuries and blood-loss as the room grows darker and the stench of blood and fear becomes unbearable. “Don't hurt her! PLEASE!”

This can’t be happening! This was just a fucking bad dream, a nightmare, it was never meant to be real! But it is and there’s nowhere to hide now. There's nothing to wake up to. No escape. No chance.

All the hope and bravery drains from Lorna’s face as the last seconds of her life count down to zero and she starts to scream, clawing desperately at the gloved hand around her throat, “Frank! HELP ME!”

Crippled by trauma, Frank can only stare helplessly at the horror unfolding before him as paralysing fear plunges his mind into shock. Cold sweat drenches his skin as his legs turn to lead and his hands shake. He can’t move or speak or do anything. It's all coming true, all of it!  
“Frank!” Lorna shrieks, “Help me!…Somebody help! HELP US!”  
Raising the knife over his head, the murderer tightens his grip on Lorna’s neck and chokes off her strangled cries as her eyes drip tears and she casts one last glance at Frank. Their gazes lock across the room as the blade plunges towards her heart and in this awful moment they realize there was never anything they could do to stop this. The visions don’t lie. This was always going to happen.

With a chilling wet thump the knife pierces her chest.

A small hiccupped gasp escapes her lips, nothing more. Then her face turns papery-white as a crimson stain seeps through the cotton nightgown and her heart stops beating. Pulling the blade free, the killer ruthlessly brings it down again and again and streams of blood spray the walls and floor, splashing his helmet and filling the air with crimson rain. The girl is dead long before her body hits the ground.

Trembling all over and gasping throat-ripping sobs, Frank pukes up a mouthful of bile and bursts into tears as the sight and sounds of death flood his senses and push his mind far beyond what it can take. Urine seeps through his blood-soaked jeans and his heart pounds so hard and fast his battered chest feels like a drum. Lorna's dead. She's fucking DEAD! She died right in front of him and he couldn't do a thing to stop it!

Her blood oozes over the floor towards him and he shrinks away from the growing puddle, curling up as small as he can, but it's not enough and in his mind he's already drowning in it. Her hollow lifeless eyes stare up at him, frozen in fear forever, and his head is spinning as his vision grays out at the edges. He can't breathe...

Heavy footsteps approach through the gore and two slippery gloved hands clamp down on his narrow shoulders and haul him upright. Dizzy and breathless, he shivers weakly in the killer’s grip, soaked in blood, sweat and puke. He’s going to die here! He’s going to die NOW! “One down,” the masked killer whispers, “One to go.”

***  
When Gerard and Stacey arrive at the address in Frank's text it isn’t a motel or a bar like they were expecting. It’s a residential house in a bad part of town and Stacey bristles with anxiety as they stare through her car's windshield at the scruffy dank building. “So this must be a friend's house right?” she blurts nervously, “Does Frank have any friends in LA? Or maybe a lady?”  
“I'm not sure,” Gerard admits, “He might. Why aren't there any lights on? Do you think they're asleep?”  
“I guess so. But I don't understand why Frank would sneak out of a window to come here without me knowing and then text me the address. It doesn't make much sense. Y'know Gee, I really thought he might be getting better this week but now... this just makes me afraid he's actually getting worse. I don't know what to do.”  
“Me neither,” Gerard sighs, tugging anxiously at his hair, “Come on. Let's see if anyone's home.”

They both exit the vehicle and Stacey immediately locks the doors behind them. The nearest streetlights have been smashed to bits and down the block an Alsation dog is barking its head off behind a rusty chain-link fence. “Wait a second,” Gerard whispers, peering into the house's messy front yard, “I've seen that red bicycle before.”  
“You have?”  
“Yeah. There was a blond girl hanging around after the car accident last week riding that bike and when Frank saw her he went fucking crazy, like he’d seen a ghost or something. I’ve never seen him so freaked out.”

Glancing warily at the silent shadowy house, Stacey frowns and shoves open the front gate, striding up the path to the front steps with Gerard right behind her. Taking a deep breath, she raises her hand to knock on the closed door but before she can touch it she hears a faint cry echoing through the rain.  
“What was that?” she gasps, pulling her hand away, heart racing.  
“What was what?” Gerard whispers.  
“I heard a voice, like someone screaming. I think it was Frankie!”  
“Are you sure?”  
“I think so. It was really quiet and sort of muffled like it was-”  
Like a distant siren another scream sounds in the night and this time they both hear it.  
“Shit!” Gerard gasps.  
“Where’s it coming from?” Stacey cries as the muffled screaming continues - a woman’s voice now, hysterical with fear: “Frank! HELP ME!”  
Looking the shabby house up and down, Gerard grabs Stacey’s hand and pulls her around the side of the building, keeping close to the grimy wall. When he finds what he’s looking for he crouches down beside it: a tiny window set into the wall at ground level. “It's coming from the basement.” A pile of oily rags inside the window blocks their view of whatever's inside but the screaming continues, louder now, hoarse and desperate, sending chills through their bones: 'Somebody help! HELP US!’

Then suddenly, horribly, the voice is silenced.

“Oh god,” Stacey gasps, her hands flying to her mouth in horror, “Ohmigod!”  
Gerard jumps to his feet and moves away from the window, “I’m going in.”  
“No! Are you crazy?” Stacey hisses, grabbing uselessly at his arm as he brushes past her and runs back around to the front of the house, “We have to call the police!”  
“There isn't time, we have to act now!” Gerard cries, “Frankie’s down there and he’s in trouble. I let him run away in Chicago and I let him run away after that car crash and both times he got hurt because he was alone so there's no fucking way I’m gonna leave him alone this time. Wait for me out here and call 911.”

Turning away, he grabs a metal pipe from the piles of junk in the yard and uses it to smash in one of the ground floor windows, hidden from the street. With a final glance at Stacey, he disappears into the gloom of the house and leaves her standing there alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Agh, sorry for the delay in updating and sorry if this is full of typos.  
> Lot of shit happening in my life right now.  
> I hope you're still reading and liking. If you are please comment!  
> Comments make us all want to write more (let's be honest, it's true)  
> xx))


	14. FOURTEEN

Frank's bruised bleeding legs can't hold him up and he collapses against the killer who laughs and lets him fall so his aching head slams into the wet concrete again. Screwing his eyes shut and panting with fresh pain he prays for unconscious or death to take him away to that numb white place of peace in the sky but he can still feel the hard ground under his beaten body and the blood soaking through his clothes...so much blood... Lorna's blood...  
Her screams of agony are still echoing in his mind and he wants to cover his ears and shut them out but his hands are still bound behind his back and the rope bites into his black and blue wrists, pinching and bleeding as the screams go on and on and maybe it's his own voice screaming now, raw and senseless with horror and pain. Then a leather-clad fist slams into his jaw and the noise stops. He never could do anything right. He couldn't save Lorna when she was begging him for help. He's so stupid and useless, a dumb trouble-making moronic liability and he fucking DESERVES to die here! 

The assassin grabs his prisoner's arm, stretching the cuts he carved into Frank's inked skin earlier and re-opening the wounds as he drags him carelessly over the basement floor like a bag of garbage. Frank can’t struggle anymore and doesn't have the strength to try. Woozy from blood-loss and concussion, he sinks into a cold exhausted haze as clouds cover his eyes and the will to live drains out of his heart along with the blood running down his skin. He can’t even cry now.  
With a muffled grunt, the killer dumps him on the blood-slicked concrete next to Lorna’s corpse and her thick slippery blood smothers his cheek and hair, swallowing him in gore, but he’s too far gone to notice. His heartbeat is sluggish and slow, pounding tiredly in his ears like distant drums as his breaths become fainter and shallower and the room starts getting dark.

The murderer slides a gloved hand into his jacket and pulls out a large black revolver with a silencer fixed to the barrel. Frank sees the gun but his mind can’t connect it to an emotion or thought or anything real as a flurry of spots and shadows flood his heavy eyes and the world falls away.

***  
The killer watches through his helmet's visor as Frank loses consciousness and sighs with disappointment. It’s no fun if they don’t beg for their life. Oh well, fuck it. It's time to go. Tightening his grip on the gun, he aims it at the kid's forehead and prepares to pull the trigger.  
Then - CRASH - he hears a sudden noise from upstairs and reflexively points the gun to the ceiling.  
Someone else is in the house.  
“Fuck,” the killer pants, licking his lips in agitation and tasting sweat on his skin. It’s too hot inside this fucking helmet. If only his Boss didn’t have such strict rules about operatives revealing their faces. Even to the dead.  
Turning away from the kids on the floor he lifts his visor and listens for further noises…  
There: footsteps on the creaking floorboards overhead and they're too light to belong to Dave Mackenzie, that big dumb ape. This is someone new who's about to wish they’d never set foot in this house tonight. Grinning with excitement, the murderer revels in a rush of adrenaline at the thought of a fresh victim. Maybe tonight won’t be such a disappointment after all. 

Listening closely to the muffled movements from above, he glances down at the blood-drenched morons lying at his feet; fuck the rules about them seeing his face. Like it matters now. The Mackenzie girl is dead – total worm-food - with her chest ripped open spilling jellied gore onto the concrete. Her boyfriend is still passed out which is nice cuz he's finally stopped fucking crying and screaming like a stuck pig. The stab wounds in his legs are still bleeding and he'll be dead soon too even if he doesn't get his pretty little face shot off. Nice.

Turning away, the assassin creeps quietly up the basement steps and pauses in front of the door leading into the main house to take off his helmet, revealing his prison-scarred face. No more restrictions on his vision and hearing for this. Pressing his ear to the door he hears the intruder’s footsteps coming closer. They seem to be making their way straight to the basement. He needs to use the element of surprise. Grasping the door handle, he listens intently with a sly grin sliding up his jaw. The intruder is almost on the other side of the door now and they're walking slowly and hesitantly, breathing hard. They sound scared. That’s good.  
Quick as lightning the killer yanks the door open and slams the butt of his revolver into the startled face of the man on the other side. 

With a cry of pain, the intruder crumples back into the shadows of the house and hits the floor, dropping a metal pipe as his hands rush to his broken nose. Growling victoriously, the killer grabs him up by the front of his coat and throws him down the basement stairs where he lands hard in a groaning heap at the bottom.  
Softly closing the door again, the killer leaps down the stairs in an instant and drags his new victim to their feet, pressing his gun to their head while he gets a good look at them. It’s another young one, probably in his late twenties and he's about half a foot shorter than the killer with longish black hair, pale skin, and hazel eyes that are now dazed and shining with pain. Blood is gushing from his small nose and his ragged breathing suggests a few bruises from his trip down the stairs.  
Sneering in satisfaction, the killer cocks the gun and watches his new plaything flinch in panic. “Are you a cop?” he snarls.  
“N-No,” the guy gasps, blood running into his mouth, “Oh fuck!”  
“What’s your name?”  
“I…um...”  
“What’s your FUCKING NAME?”  
“Gerard.”  
“Oh, so you’re Gerard,” the maniac smirks, lowering the gun a little, “You’re the one who’s been calling trying to find his little friend Frankie, huh?”  
Gerard’s eyes widen in surprise and the killer shoves him backwards so hard he falls on his ass in the congealing mess of the Mackenzie girl’s blood. With a strangled cry, the young man skitters away from her jagged crimson corpse and slips in the gore, tumbling onto the body of his friend Frank. With horror-struck eyes, he opens his mouth to scream but only a croak comes out. “Well congratulations, Gerard,” the killer crows, “You found him!”

***  
Numb with shock Gerard stares down in agony at his best friend’s battered body. Sprawled stiff and motionless on the bloodied concrete, Frank is barely recognisable as the handsome little ball of energy and heart that he was a month ago before his nightmares began. His torn clothes are hanging off his frail body and his bruised skin is smeared red and butchered with cuts and deep oozing wounds. Trails of darker blood are drying under his nose and at the corners of his mouth and his closed eyes are ringed with purple shadows and sunken into his head under a matted curtain of wet hair. He looks like a broken doll. He looks dead... Choking on a hot lump of grief in his throat, Gerard reaches out with quivering fingers to touch Frank’s face but he can't bring himself to make contact. Frankie can’t be dead...No, no, please no, god NO! Trying desperately to stop his hand from shaking, he drops it onto Frank’s chest and presses his palm into the blood and vomit-soaked t-shirt... and he can't feel him breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Dun dun dun... sorry this chapter's so short.  
> I'm a bit stuck on something coming up that I want to change but don't know how  
> so I just posted what I have so far.  
> I love you all for still reading this insane shit!  
> Please comment, if you like commenting. xx))


	15. FIFTEEN

Forgetting for a moment the gun-wielding murderer behind him, Gerard desperately grips Frank's shoulders and starts shaking his body, his trembling hands slipping in the blood on his friend's skin. “Frankie?” he sobs, his voice breaking as Frank's limp body remains unresponsive and cold, “Frankie, wake up! FRANK!”  
While the killer looks on, snickering in amusement, Gerard grabs the stained dagger still stuck in Lorna's chest and cuts the wire tying Frank's hands together before rolling him onto his back and starting CPR, pressing his hands hard over Frank's heart and blowing tear-drenched gasps of air between his pale blue lips.

After a few seconds Frank groans loudly with pain as Gerard crushes his ribs, coughing a few hoarse breaths as he half-opens his eyes and tears spill down his bruised cheeks. “Ah-owww...”  
“Frankie!” Gerard wails in relief, stroking his friend's wet face, “Oh god! I thought you... Frankie?”  
Looking into Frank's dazed bloodshot eyes, the singer realizes with a sinking feeling that his friend is either still unconscious or so badly hurt that he's brain-damaged or even blind. Formally so bright and full of mischief, Frank’s eyes have been dying for weeks now. Ever since the nightmares began to haunt him their light has dimmed a little more every day but now, swollen and dark with blood and tears, they’re completely hollow and empty. Like Frank isn’t there anymore.  
The murderer in black clears his throat and Gerard’s heart plummets. Turning in terror to the killer standing over him he feels the puddle of congealing human blood shift and squelch under his knees and his stomach churns.  
“W-What have you done t-to Frank?” he hears himself stammer, tears filling his eyes until the killer is a mist of shadow and shade, “W-Why won’t he wake up?”  
“Are you retarded or something?” the huge man snorts, brutally pistol-whipping Gerard in the head with his gun, “Shut the fuck up!”

With a yelp of agony, Gerard collapses on his back with what feels like a dozen needles drilling into his skull and he wants to pass out from the pain but adrenaline and fear won’t let him.  
Why did he come in here alone? It was so fucking STUPID!  
***  
Shimmering and splitting apart, Frank's vision dissolves into a gray and red blur before fracturing into deep black nothingness and it hurts so much to breathe he wishes he could just die already and make it stop. His terrorized mind must be playing tricks on him because he could have sworn he heard Gerard's voice just now. But that's stupid. Gerard can't be here because no one is down here in the cold dead dark except the ghosts of Anna and Sam and everyone else who has died... and the still-living thug who killed them.  
Anna's wispy gray form leans over Frank's battered body in the darkness and strokes his face with her slim icy fingers. “Wake up,” she whispers and a storm of images trample through Frank's exhausted brain as sensation burns in his chest and hands.... Whiskey and vomit...blood and screams...Lorna's butchered remains and the knife lodged in her dead flesh... Are my hands are untied now?...Fuck... Oh god, fuck it hurts! Everything hurts and...there's a knife on the floor... a gun in tense air... someone else is here?... someone I know is in danger... oh fuck, Gee?!...eyes filled with fear...  
“Come on Frankie,” Lorna's ghost whispers, her voice joining Anna's in a faint raspy chorus like rustling leaves, “You have to wake up now!”

***  
“Does anyone else know you’re here?” the killer barks, stepping over Frank's body and aiming the revolver at Gerard’s face.  
“I-I don't know,” Gerard sobs, staring wide-eyed at the loaded gun and praying that Stacey has called the cops already.  
“TELL ME!”  
“No, no one!”  
“NO ONE?”  
“I SWEAR!”  
“And how the fuck did you know Frank was here tonight?”  
“I…er…”  
Scared half to death, Gerard can’t think of an answer that doesn’t involve Stacey so he says nothing and the hand holding the gun tenses with fury, ready to strike him again. “ No stop!” he begs, shielding his face with his arms and smearing the dead girl's blood on his cheeks, “Don't!” But the blow never lands. Instead, the killer leans down and roughly shoves Gerard’s arms aside, pressing the gun to his forehead and searching his pockets until he finds and removes the singer's cell phone and smashes it to bits on the concrete.  
“You'd better not be lying to me! But either way you’re a dead man.”  
The gun presses harder against Gerard’s face and slides down his jaw to bite into the thin chapped skin of his lips. “Open your mouth!” the killer growls.  
With death staring down at him, Gerard shakes his head and locks his jaw shut, sweat streaming down his face as he hyperventilates with terror. Without hesitation, the killer hits him again and Gerard’s mouth fills with blood as the basement pitches and rolls violently around his aching head.  
“OPEN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!”

With no choice Gerard does as he’s told and the cold, bitter-tasting barrel of the gun is forced between his teeth; crushing his tongue and scraping the roof of his mouth. The killer leans down, his cruel, angular face mere inches away, and looks him hard in the eyes. “You are going to die now,” he spits, his sour breath hot on Gerard’s skin, “You are going to DIE you piece of shit. Nod if you understand.”  
Weeping desperate, chest-shredding sobs that emerge as tear-soaked gasps around the gun, Gerard nods and cries harder, his teeth biting down painfully on the hard metal filling his mouth. His head throbs and his eyes burn as the whole world shrinks down to this one tiny pinprick of existence and he doesn't want to die here. He’s twenty-seven years old - he doesn’t want to die!  
The killer’s cold gaze pierces Gerard’s skull and the air thickens with the stench of blood, sweat and fear. Dust hovers in empty air and black shadows hide the sound of distant sirens wailing through distant streets. Gloved fingers tighten on the metal trigger and Gerard’s mind fills with thoughts and memories, feelings and faces, so many images and sounds of beauty and horror and sweetness and pain that he can’t take it and he feels shattered under the weight of it all. How will his parents cope when they hear the gruesome details of their son’s death? What will Mikey do without his big brother to look out for him? Breaking under the heart-stopping terror, Gerard squeezes his eyes shut as the last fleeting moments of his life count down to zero. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t_

BANG!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...................................................................................................................
> 
> ((Hi readers, sorry for the wait and the shortness of this chapter.  
> I've been away for Christmas and New Year and I left my laptop behind.  
> I love you forever for putting up with me and commenting.  
> Your comments help me write.  
> Now I'm back I will update ASAP. What the fuck is going to happen next?  
> I'm re-writing stuff so we'll see. Any thoughts?  
> xxx))


	16. SIXTEEN

Frank's eyes fly open as fire and chills rake his brain, and through misty blood-soured vision he sees the murderer in black. But the killer has his back to him now and is holding a gun to... Gerard's head?! Holy fuck! 

“You are going to die you fucking moron,” the murderer growls, forcing the gun barrel down Gerard's throat until the singer is gagging on it and tears are streaming from his closed eyes, “Nod if you understand.”  
Gerard nods, retching and shaking and the gunman looms over him to savor the kill, ignoring Frank completely. Forcing himself to sit up, Frank bites his tongue against a cry of pain as his slashed and bruised skin splits and bleeds. High on adrenaline and dizzy from bloodloss, he grabs the sticky blade that killed Lorna off the red-soaked floor with trembling fingers and stabs it as hard as he can into the back of the murderer's right leg. Bellowing with pain, the killer yanks his gun free of Gerard's bleeding lips and turns violently, knocking Gerard out and aiming the weapon at Frank's heart just as the basement door slams open with a BANG!  
“Police! Freeze!”  
Two weapons open fire and more death stains the L.A night.

***  
Thunder and echoes...  
Ringing...  
Choked gasps and screams...  
Raised voices boom over radio static...  
Running footsteps...  
Sobs and retching, gagging...  
Vomit splatters...  
And now the sirens...

And now the sirens.

Gerard opens his eyes as consciousness returns to him and all he sees is an ocean of red that stops his heart cold - he’s been shot! OH GOD! Is he’s blind? Dying? Why doesn't it hurt? Shock? Is he bleeding out?! Fucking DEAD already?!

A faint female voice shouts something over a man’s gruff response and a muted babble of chatter buzzes like locusts around the bleeding red void of his vision:  
“Officer down, officer down!”  
“Oh my god is he dead? Are they dead? Somebody do something! Help them for God's sake!”  
“Miss, please...”  
“Get her out of here!”  
“This is Unit Five, we have multiple casualties on scene. Require immediate back up. Repeat…”  
“Frank! Gee!”  
“I SAID GET HER OUT OF HERE!”  
“Perpetrator’s dead.”  
“This one too...”  
More voices.  
And movement.  
And crying...

A sudden rush of body heat on Gerard's feels wet skin and then the numbing cocoon of shock around his brain drops away. The frantic voices all around him are amplified to deafening levels and a wave of agony rips through his skull, spilling out of his mouth in blood and screaming.  
“Woah, shhhh, calm down,” a deep male voice hushes, “It’s okay, man.”  
Choking on the blood in his mouth, Gerard has no choice but to stop howling but he’s trembling with pain and still blind. Nearby someone else is sobbing their guts out. Where's Frank?!  
“My name is Greg, I'm a paramedic,” the deep voice adds quickly, “I’m gonna help you breathe better now okay? Just need to put something in your mouth. Try to relax…”  
Plastic clacks against his teeth and there's a low sucking sound. Then the blood is gone and he can breathe and sob and speak again.  
“Alright,” Greg's voice murmurs, “Can you tell me your name?”  
Coughing and whimpering, Gerard croaks out his name, feeling like he's sinking through the floor into darkness.  
“Okay Gerard, and can you tell me where it hurts?”  
“My head hurts s-so much... and my chest. There was a gun! Am I dying?”  
“I don't think so, son.”  
“I can’t see! W-Why can't I see?”  
“You’ve got a lot of blood in your eyes from a wound on your head but don’t worry. Your friend got the officers here just in time.”  
A warm gloved hand touches Gerard’s clammy forehead and gently pulls his eyes open wider one at a time as a bright light shines through the red mist.  
“No sign of any real damage here. I’ll just rinse your eyes out…”

A blurred watery version of the basement washes into view and Gerard blinks hard, squinting up at a middle-aged bald man in a paramedics uniform kneeling over him on the dirty floor. The floor soaked in blood.  
He opens his mouth to ask about Frank but he’s having trouble breathing and he can't get the words out. Greg runs his hands gently over his ribs and belly and asks him again what hurts, then puts an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose and injects him with something for the pain.  
Gradually, Gerard’s vision clears and the agony in his head fades as the drugs kick in. Instead of sinking, he feels like he's floating above the filthy floor and the basement is suddenly crammed with strange people: police officers and medics, a guy with a too-bright camera flashing away and even a firefighter. Looking groggily around at all the activity, Gerard finally notices the three bloodied corpses lying scattered around the dim room and a mix of horror, dread and morphine makes him burst into tears. The blond girl Frank knew is one of the dead and the second body is wearing a cop uniform and has a bullet-hole in his forehead. 

The third corpse is dressed in blood-stained biker leathers. 

“Frankie…W-Where’s Frank?!” Gerard sobs when he can catch his breath.  
“The kid with the tattoos?” Greg asks, smiling sadly, “He’s right over there. My colleague Cheryl is taking good care of him. We'll have you both in the hospital soon.”  
“I need to see him,” Gerard insists, pushing past the weird floating sensation of the morphine and Greg’s restraining hands to sit up and look around for his friend. 

Frank is sitting up against an old refrigerator a few feet away with a silver medical blanket draped around his shoulders and his legs stretched out in front of him. He's drenched in blood, most of it his own, and crying so hard he's hardly making any noise at all, just shuddering and heaving breathless gasps and child-like hiccups. A middle-aged paramedic with red hair is trying to cut away the blood-soaked denim of his jeans to get a better look at his injuries but for some reason Frank is struggling against her and trying to shove her away. His teary eyes are lost in whatever nightmares and visions are trampling through his head and he can't seem to hear her soothing words at all.

“Frankie,” Gerard whimpers, his throat burning at the sight of his friend in so much pain.  
“Hey wait,” Greg says in a warning tone as Gerard makes a move to stand, “You’re in no shape to be walking around.”  
“Then help me” Gerard begs, pulling the oxygen mask off his face, “Please just let me get to him.”  
Sighing in disapproval, Greg nods and helps Gerard to his feet, guiding him over the slippery concrete until he can sit down beside Frank. The other medic, Cheryl, has planted her gloved hands on Frank’s legs, trying to hold him still while she examines the stab wounds in his thighs but he's squirming and fighting her off. “Can you calm your friend down a little?” she asks Gerard in anxious desperation, “I’m reluctant to sedate him while he’s concussed but he’s going to make himself worse if he won't let me treat his injuries.”  
Blinking back tears, Gerard nods and looks around for Stacey like a lost child for their mother but she's nowhere to be seen. They must have made her wait outside.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, the singer gingerly tries to slide his arm around Frank’s shoulders but at the moment of contact Frank jerks violently away, eliciting a sigh from Cheryl as she drops her scissors.  
“Shhhh Frankie, it’s alright,” Gerard says quickly, “You’re safe now, it’s okay…”  
But it’s not okay. Things will never be okay or normal again and My Chemical Romance seems like a joke right now compared to the tragedy of real life. 

Dropping his shaking hands into his lap, Frank shivers weakly and looks at Gerard with swollen eyes; still crying so hard he can barely breathe. His skin is sweaty and deathly pale under a hundred smears of blood and terror and exhaustion cover him like a cloak.  
“Frankie, please, I’m not going to hurt you,” Gerard whispers, trying to keep his voice steady as he lays a hesitant hand on his friend's wounded arm. Frank flinches at the touch but his sobs are calmer now and behind the curtain of his damp blood-soaked hair his woozy eyes are lucid and barely open.  
“No one’s gonna hurt you now,” Gerard murmurs, very aware of the paramedics crowding around them with needles and bandages at the ready, “Trust me, it’s alright...it’s okay. No one can hurt you now... no one can hurt you now…”  
Murmuring this small comfort over and over, the singer keeps his eyes locked tightly on Frank’s, pleading with him to come back from whatever hell he’s fallen into, until Frank finally nods, his skinny chest shuddering with smothered sobs as he collapses into his friend’s warm arms. “H-He killed her! Killed her r-right in front of m-me!”  
“I know,” Gerard whispers, stroking Frank's damp hair and cuddling him close while Cheryl bandages his bleeding legs, “I know and I’m so sorry Frankie. I'm sorry I didn’t help you before. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen.”  
Frank nods shakily, his tears soaking Gerard’s collar, and then he suddenly feels heavier as the last light leaves his eyes and he passes out. 

At once the paramedics pounce, pulling Frank’s limp body onto a waiting gurney and strapping him down. “Okay, people,” Greg orders his team, “Let’s move!”  
Cheryl helps Gerard to his feet as a police detective walks over to escort them out of the building. “Thanks,” she whispers, “You really helped your friend.”  
Gerard nods blankly but he can't agree with what she's saying. He doesn’t think he helped Frank at all tonight and if his friend's troubled mind carries on the way it is, soon there won't be anyone who can.

***

Left alone in the dark on the grimy street outside Lorna’s house, Stacey had called the emergency services just moments after Gerard broke into the house. The fact that she didn’t wait any longer saved his life. 

Two police cars were dispatched to the scene with their sirens off and after hearing Stacey’s frantic testimony about screams for help in the basement, the LAPD broke in to find a murdered girl and two other victims still breathing, one with a gun in his face. The tall man in black holding the weapon whirled to face the cops as they burst in and brutally opened fire, killing one sergeant with a head-shot before the others gunned him down. The revolver fell from his lifeless hand as his body hit the floor and clattered to the crimson ground in front of Lorna's empty eyes.

As the echo of gunshots hollered through the night silence reigned in the basement for a moment, broken only by gasps of horror from the two surviving cops and a scream from outside. Then walkie-talkies whined and burbled as ambulances and more police came to back up their colleagues and one of the officers who’d killed the biker puked all over the basement steps. Paramedics rushed in and Stacey - who had screamed in terror when she first heard the gunfire - followed them to the murder scene and began to cry in hysterical panic when she saw Frank and Gerard lying there covered in blood. “Are they dead?! Help them for god's sake!” Eventually one of the female sergeants took her arm and pulled her outside as Greg and Cheryl entered the basement morgue with their medkits in hand.

“Perpetrator’s dead,” Cheryl quickly reported, checking with gloved fingers for the biker’s non-existent pulse while Greg sadly surveyed the dead cop. “This one too,” she added, sighing wearily over the body of the young blond girl before moving on. With her heart pounding nervously at the sight and stench of so much death, she tried to breathe through her mouth as she made her way over to the young tattooed guy curled up on the gory floor a few feet away, keeping one eye on the angry jittery cops who were invading the scene with tapes and cameras to document the dead. 

Setting down her kit, Cheryl swallowed hard and faked a reassuring smile for the traumatized kid in front of her. He was so young, maybe early twenties, and her heart broke for him and his poor dead girlfriend over there. No one should have to die like that, no matter what they did wrong in their life. Unpacking first-aid equipment and bandages, she let her eyes and training tell her most of what she needed to know. The kid's dazed eyes and the blood in his hair indicated a head-wound and likely concussion and his white lips and pale sweaty face told her he'd already lost a lot of blood and was going into shock. He was still strong enough to scramble and cower away from her though when she raised her hands towards him in a calming gesture and the soothing words she always recited to trauma victims soon died on her lips. The damage to his body was obvious: he'd been beaten black and blue and his arms were a mess of torn skin and knife wounds brimming with half-clotted blood. His jeans were also soaked through with red but to find the source of the bleeding she'd have to cut away the soiled denim fabric and he wouldn't let her get close enough to do that. The poor thing had obviously been through the ringer tonight and he was still too overwhelmed with grief or trauma to hear her comforting voice. 

Gritting her teeth, the medic tried to take her patient's arm but he burst into tears and twisted out of her grip, slipping and skidding in his own blood as he scrambled away from her, fighting for breath and whimpering with pain. Frowning worriedly, Cheryl added possible broken ribs to her mental list of his injuries and when he finally succumbed to obvious exhaustion and passed out in the arms of the other survivor of this bloodbath, it made her job so much easier. Unfortunately, this was one tiny convenience in a night from hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I re-wrote this stupid chapter four times and i'm still not happy with it and it's probably full of typos  
> but I haven't updated in so long and I didn't want to leave you lovely people hanging anymore.  
> What happens next I leave partly up to you. Comment whatever you like (within reason lol) and I will work it into the story.  
> I love you all for sticking with me. xxx)


	17. SEVENTEEN

“Wait, I need to go with them!”  
“Are you family?”  
“Well n-no, I'm their lawyer and their friend! Please-”  
“Sorry Miss, only family members can ride along. Meet us at the hospital.”

THUD.

The slam of ambulance doors in her face replays through Stacey's mind as she drives as fast as legally possible to the hospital where the flashing lights ahead are taking Frank and Gerard. Anxious nausea curdles her stomach and her hands clench white-knuckled on the steering wheel. Pressing her cell phone to her ear with her shoulder she calls Brian and gets his voicemail. “Shit!...Er, sorry Brian, it's Stacey. Frank and Gerard were attacked tonight. They're in the hospital and... it's bad. Find Mikey and call me as soon as you can.”

Dirty headlamps pierce the wet night like lasers and it takes forever for Stacey to find a parking spot. When she finally runs through the Emergency Room doors clutching her purse and phone all she can smell is antiseptic and blood and she wants to scream from the dread and guilt choking her. 

A bored-looking man at the admittance desk tells her to take a seat in the waiting room with some forms to fill out but she spies the red-haired medic from the crime scene walking past and desperately grabs her arm. “Hey, hi. I was at the house with all the...dead people just now in the basement. Can you tell me where my friends are? Please, I just need to know if they're okay!”

Cheryl recognizes the worried lady and leads her quietly to a nearby trauma room where Frank is being looked after.  
“I have to go now but I hope your friend pulls through,” she whispers, squeezing Stacey's trembling hand, “Give the doctors all the information you can, okay?”  
Then the medic is gone and Stacey is left standing alone in a trauma room doorway with wide eyes and a racing heart. Nurses rush around with needle kits and bags of blood and the doctors are shouting complicated medical jargon that she doesn’t understand. Frank's bruised eyes are closed and his limp body looks small and pale lying on the blood-stained bed. The nurses are cutting his clothes away with scissors while a junior doctor wipes down his slashed arm and inserts an I.V. Stepping cautiously into the room on wobbly legs, Stacey hears her wet sneakers squeak on the tiles and one of the doctors – a tall Korean guy in green scrubs - glances up and sees her. “Rosie,” he calls to someone on his team, “Can you take care of the lady please?” 

A a short matronly nurse wearing peach scrubs peels away from the crowd and bustles over to Stacey, laying a soft but firm hand on her arm. “Come on, hon. Let’s step outside and let the doctors work.”  
“Oh okay,” Stacey mumbles numbly, checking her phone screen for messages and seeing nothing but blank pixels, “Is Frank going to be okay? Can you tell me anything?”  
“As soon as I know something I'll tell you,” Nurse Rosie soothes, guiding her into the bright hospital corridor, “The most helpful thing you can do for him right now is fill out an admittance form so we know all his details.”  
“Alright, I'll try my best but-.”  
“Does he have health insurance?”  
“He...I-I... He has whatever the record company gave him.”  
“Okay. Well try to stay calm. Frank won’t be left alone I promise and we are doing everything we can to help him. What’s your name hon?”  
“Stacey.”  
“Okay Stacey. We had two patients brought in from this incident, including your friend there. I don't suppose you know the second man as well?”  
Stacey nods tearfully, “Yes. His name is Gerard Way a-and he's also a friend. But you see neither of them live in California, they're from New Jersey. I mean they only came to Los Angeles for…uh…for work. Their next of kin are all in Jersey. Oh my god I have to tell their parents!”  
“That's okay. We can notify their families if you have contact details.”  
Stacey nods again, sudden sobs escaping her lips as her eyes flood. Brian still hadn't called her back and she's probably not even allowed to use a cell phone in here. 

As if things couldn't get any worse, a man in a long trench coat suddenly comes walking down the hall towards them and Stacey watches Rosie tense at his approach, the nurse’s blue eyes narrowing in annoyance as she folds her arms and sets her lips in a thin white line.  
“Stacey Fass?” the man asks bluntly, whipping a police ID badge out of his belt.  
“Yes.”  
“I’m Detective Peters with the LAPD. I need to ask you some questions.”  
“Do you have to ask them right now?” Nurse Rosie asks, arching her eyebrows accusingly at the cop.  
“Well I would like to,” Peters growls, “We have several bodies on our hands here, including an officer of the law and Ms Fass here is a witness.”  
“You'll have to wait a few minutes,” Nurse Rosie interrupts, fixing the detective with her stern eyes, “She needs to come with me first. Admittance forms need to be filled out and she should be medically evaluated for signs of shock.”  
“Fine,” Peters says gruffly, peering through the glass doors into Frank’s trauma room behind them, “But be quick. My colleagues and I will be waiting.”

Nurse Rosie nods briskly and leads Stacey away back towards the admin desk. “Sorry about that. I'll try to keep you away from their questions until you’ve at least been allowed to see your friends.”  
Leaning over the sweeping grey desk, Rosie flags down one of the desk clerks, a tall woman with a phone in one hand and a patient’s chart in the other.  
“Hey Donna, where's the minor trauma from the basement homicide?”  
“In Curtains” Donna answers, pressing the telephone’s mouthpiece against her shoulder as she speaks, “With Dr Michaels.”  
“Thanks.”

After another dash through the department Stacey finds herself in the ER’s Curtained Area surrounded by clean mostly empty beds. There are several nurses, interns and doctors hanging around and Rosie takes her straight to where an elderly nurse and a young man in a white coat are passing gloves and gauze back and forth over Gerard’s bed. The singer is awake and sitting up, wearing a hospital gown and his blood-stained jeans, but his face is mostly hidden behind a large ice pack that he’s holding against his nose and nasty purple bruises are forming around his eyes. There's dried blood on his lips and his hands are shaking. The lawyering part of Stacey's brain automatically tries to think up a good press explanation for his appearance as the old nurse smooths his black hair off his forehead and starts cleaning a deep ugly gash there so the doctor can stitch up the wound.  
Gerard glances up when Stacey walks over and his tired frightened eyes relax by one or two degrees but he's obviously hurting and looks close to tears.

Nurse Rosie takes Dr Michaels aside for a quick word and Stacey steps closer to the bed, laying her fingers on the metal side-rail and squeezing it tight. “Can they give you anything for the pain?” she asks softly.  
Gerard lowers the ice-pack, revealing what looks like a broken nose, and Stacey takes one of his hands in hers, wincing at his cold shivering skin, “They already did,” he mumbles hoarsely, his lips trembling, “But any more drugs and I'll pass out and they said I h-have to be awake. Head injuries and all. Where’s Frankie? Is he okay?”  
Stacey opens her mouth to reply but no words come out. She doesn’t have any answers, and Gerard’s voice is shaking and she knows he’s barely holding it together right now.  
“Don't worry, Frank’s being looked after,” she answers gently, “But there’s some cops hanging around asking questions. Don't talk to them unless I'm with you, do you understand?"  
Gerard nods and swallows hard, his eyelashes spiky and wet. “Have you called Brian?” he whispers.  
“Yes. He’s probably still in Nevada with Mikey and the others but I'm sure they'll be here as soon as they can. Should I call your parents?”  
“Yeah...or maybe not. They'll only worry right? I guess tell them I'm okay but get Frank's mom here. He'll want her and h-he'll be so scared when he wakes up. I mean IF he...”  
Trailing off, Gerard bursts into tears and Stacey quickly pulls him into a motherly hug, his cold fingers clutching helplessly at her arms as he weeps and shudders against her. The two nurses and the doctor are staring at them with a mixture of sympathy and impatience and Stacey glares back, her fear retreating into professionalism and strength. She would protect Gerard and Frank against the whole fucking world if that's what it took to keep them safe and sane tonight.  
In her jacket pocket her phone is buzzing for attention. Brian and Mikey are on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hiya, sorry this is so short, I have major writer's block atm  
> and work is keeping me very busy but I will never give up on this story.  
> Thank you for being so patient and please comment if you can.  
> xxx))


	18. EIGHTEEN

TWO MONTHS LATER:

“Why are you wearing sunglasses, Frank?”  
You asked me that last time, Frank thinks miserably, pressing his chapped, bitten lips tightly together and tapping his right foot anxiously against the floor, Why can't you just drop it?  
“You wore them in our last session too. Is my office too bright for you? I want you to feel comfortable here, and as at ease as you can be given the circumstances.”  
Shut up you idiot, just shut up! Frank begs silently from behind gritted teeth, staring so hard at the carpet that it blurs into misty yellow clouds.  
“The clinic staff tell me that you haven't spoken a word to anyone in nearly a week, Frank. I would like to know why that is. This is a safe place and you can say anything you want in here. I'm not ever going to judge you and what you say is completely confidential. Why have you stopped talking?”  
Because nobody in here fucking listens to me, you fucking asshole! You all think I'm delusional and hallucinating and crazy and if no one believes what I say then Lorna died for fucking NOTHING and I hate you for that! So keep stuffing drugs down my throat but they don't solve shit and I wish I was dead, I wish I was fucking dead like her!  
“I'll assume from your continued silence that you still don't want to speak. That's okay. Would you like some pen and paper to write down or draw your feelings instead?”  
I'd rather make myself puke, Frank thinks wearily, dropping his head into his hands as his eyes sting and grow wet behind his shades, Go fuck yourself Doc.

***  
When Frank first awoke in hospital it was with a cry of fear.

Splitting open his bruised eyelids, he whimpered in the harsh electric light as the after-taste of hell bubbled in his throat and flooded his cheeks with tears. Beyond the noise of his own harsh breathing he could hear a fast mechanical bleeping sound. His tortured head buzzed and ached, buried deep in a mound of damp pillows in a strange bed, and smothered pain throbbed in his ribs. He couldn't feel his legs but his stomach hurt and his mouth was dry and gritty. Blinking blearily he took a deep shaky breath and almost choked, sobbing as needles of hurt pierced his ribs. A small white room took shape around him and the sound of distant footsteps and voices clattered and thundered somewhere far away but nobody was in sight. He was alone.

Timidly lifting his head he caught woozy glimpses of white cotton, shining metal and plastic pouches of liquid running tiny snakes into his arms. A black screen was flickering with glowing green lines bouncing along to the tune of bleep...bleep...bleep... and he finally realized he was in a hospital. Shit, was he hurt really bad? He couldn't remember anything.

Fighting against the druggy numbness weighing his body down, he tried to move his hands and felt his fingers twitch as spikes of soreness shivered up his arms and made him feel sick. Groaning miserably as tears washed out his sight, he tried to remember how he'd ended up here but all he could see in his mind's eye was a frightening haze of blood and grime and pain and he tried concentrating on the blurry images to bring them into focus. Big mistake. Before he could stop it, his brain exploded into gory flashbacks that overwhelmed his senses and stole the real world away. He could see Gerard's face, pale with fear and crying his name... And so much fucking blood! Sticky red pulses of it filled his eyes and gurgled in his throat and he could taste it all over again, see it oozing from his scarred flesh all over again! His own blood, Gerard's blood and Lorna's blood, soaking through the hospital sheets, clinging to his wet skin, painting him red. It was everywhere, it was drowning him! 

Terror smothered reality as blood gushed and poured across the bed, slimy and thick, and Frank gagged and shoved the wet sheets away as Lorna's corpse, gray and rotting, appeared beside him carved up like a butchered pig. Her dead gaze pierced his heart like a bullet and her terrified last words shrieked in his ears as visions of fatal blades flew at his face and the sharp metal shards slashed and chopped into his skin, cutting him to the bone. Wild unbearable pain burned through his limbs as Anna and Lorna screamed and howled for vengeance and mercy and his own voice was screaming now too like it would never stop.

A passing nurse heard noises coming from Frank's room and rushed in to find him awake and hysterical, curled up with his hands over his ears as he sobbed into the clean bandages on his arms and begged and screamed at the spotless empty room to be quiet and go away.

***  


The winter in New Jersey is bitterly cold and drags on into late February and early March. The freezing streets seem permanently encrusted in dirty snow and ice and Gerard stares glumly through the foggy bus window at the rows of gray buildings and even grayer people blurring by. Slumping in his seat, he re-reads the directions he scribbled in smudged marker on the back of his hand and sucks his lower lip, tasting the vodka he hurriedly necked twenty minutes ago in the bus station toilets. There's another bottle in his backpack and it's calling out to him now but he can't turn up at the clinic drunk. They might want to commit him too. Fuck, maybe they should. Pulling his black coat tighter around his body, he tugs the hood further down over his face and breathes steam into the gasoline-and-fart-smelling air, craving a cigarette. Buses are gross but at the ripe old age of 27 he still can't drive. It's either this or he gets off and walks and fuck that when it's cold out and he still has four miles to go. 

This is the first time he's been to see Frank since the police let them leave LA and he's pissed off at himself for waiting so long and also nervous as hell, his heart beating too fast as alcohol sweat prickles under his arms and on the back of his neck. With MCR on indefinite hiatus, he's moved back into the basement of his parent's house in Belleville and his life has screeched to a depressing halt. He started drinking again the night they discharged him from hospital because alcohol helped dull the flashes of blood and guns and dead girls terrorizing his brain. He's rarely been sober since. Several months of tee-totalling went right down the fucking drain but he doesn't give a shit anymore. The right mix of booze and pills can block out any nightmares, no matter how bad, and if he runs the risk of dying in a doped-up sleep he doesn't care. Without My Chemical Romance he doesn't have a life anyway. He doesn't have anything.

Sighing as the bus rumbles to a halt in heavy traffic, Gerard rubs his eyes and jumps out of his skin when a car suddenly backfires outside. The gunshot-like noise shoots his heart into his throat and tenses every muscle in his body. Gasping for breath as the phantom taste of steel and blood floods his mouth and panic boils in his stomach, he blinks back tears and bad memories and desperately fumbles in his bag with trembling hands for his ipod and headphones. Cramming the foam buds into his ears, he hits PLAY and thumbs the clicking wheel until he finds a track that can bring him back to earth and block out the noise of the outside world that hurts so fucking much. There's no gunman here. There's no danger. I'm safe. I'm safe. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay...

It takes the rest of the bus ride for him to calm down and when he gets off at his stop his legs are still weak and shaking. The steel gates of the psychiatric clinic loom darkly over the empty street as the bus hisses and rumbles away and Gerard slowly removes his headphones and tucks his greasy hair behind his ears, shivering in the icy wind. He didn't want to be here but Frank's mom had sounded so desperate on the phone this morning:  
“Please, Gerard, please go and see him. I think...I'm scared he's getting worse. He won't even talk anymore. He won't even talk to me! You were there with him when...when IT happened. Maybe he'll respond to you. I'm so sorry to ask this, but maybe you can help him. I don't know what else to do...”

***  
Frank is confined to the clinic's secure men's ward in a room at the end of a long windowless beige corridor. When the middle-aged nurse who leads Gerard there opens the door, the stale smell of body odour and old food washes out and she sighs loudly, scrunching up her nose. Striding into the simply-decorated cell she opens the window as far as the safety-catch will allow. “You need some fresh air in here, Mr Iero. You've got a visitor so please leave the door open and I'll be back in ten minutes to give you your meds.” Walking briskly out, she pauses beside Gerard who is standing self-consciously in the doorway and whispers, “Don't be surprised if he won't talk to you.” Then she's gone and Gerard is left in uncomfortable silence. 

Frank is slouched in a nest of crumpled pillows on the room's only bed, dressed in torn jeans and a baggy army surplus shirt that's far too big for him. His feet are bare and although his eyes are hidden behind a curtain of shaggy hair and aviator sunglasses, he's obviously staring at the bleeping GameBoy gripped tightly in his hands and refusing to look up and see who's stopping by. He's lost a lot of weight since Gerard last saw him and his cheeks are unshaven and hollow. The exposed skin of his hands and neck looks as pale and delicate as a porcelain doll's. There's a tray of untouched mashed potatoes and greens sitting near him on the sheets with a hungry fly buzzing around it. Several empty plastic coke bottles and dirty socks litter the floor.

Gerard clears his throat in the uneasy silence and Frank finally glances up, his twitching fingers dropping the GameBoy carelessly in his lap. There's a large pink scar running through his lower lip to halfway down his chin and he slowly raises a fist to his mouth and exhales loudly through curled knuckles, his expression unreadable. His fingernails have been chewed down to blood-stained nubs and he's shivering slightly in the draught from the window. 

“Hey,” Gerard says nervously, taking another step forward, “How're you doing?”  
Frank frowns and sighs, folding his arms over his skinny chest like a pouting toddler and Gerard almost smiles but stops himself just in time. This is some seriously tragic shit and it's only the booze that's making him giggly. Fuck, he could really use another drink.  
“Your mom asked me to come see you,” he mumbles, looking around the small room at the faded yellow wallpaper and the chair in the corner, the small sink and the wicker hamper under the window. “It's pretty cosy in here, huh?”

Frank doesn't say anything, just shakes his head and lies down, tossing his shades blindly at the floor and pulling a wrinkled blanket over his head. “Alright, I guess that means you don't feel like talking,” Gerard sasses, frustration creeping into his tone, “Well too bad because I need to say something to you and I'm gonna say it whether you answer me or not so listen up.” Taking a deep breath, he sits down on the bed, deliberately making the mattress bounce, and Frank shoves the blanket aside and glares at him with bloodshot eyes surrounded in shadows of sleeplessness.  
“I think I know what you've been seeing in your head at night, Frankie,” the singer whispers, glancing briefly out the open door to make sure the nurse isn't eavesdropping before returning his hazel gaze to Frank's scarred face, “I think deep down I've actually known for a long time but I never wanted to believe it. You have to understand, I thought it was just the same old night-terrors bullshit I've been dealing with since I was a little kid. If you have that kind of thing your entire life you just get used to it, y'know? You have to, to survive. Toro calls me the leading authority on bad dreams and he's right. At least...I thought he was right. But ever since L.A ...” Trailing off, Gerard swallows hard and watches Frank sit up slowly, still staring at him. “Look, what I'm trying to say is, uh...fuck. I think... Maybe I get the same stupid weird magical impossible fortune-telling nightmares as you do, okay? I just haven't let them drive me crazy! There, I've fucking said it.”

Frank's face slackens in gob-smacked surprise and then quickly hardens into anger and disbelief and he opens his cracked lips to bark the first word he's spoken in two weeks: “WHAT?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hello again faithful readers,  
> Sorry it's taking me so long between updates. I am trying to beat my writers block and you guys help just by reading and commenting so thank you so much.  
> I'm a little self-conscious about this story but I hope you are liking it anyway.  
> To be continued, soon I hope.  
> xx))


	19. NINETEEN

Gerard flinches at the hurt and rage in his young friend's pale face, wishing that he hadn't come here, wishing what he'd said wasn't true. “Why...Why didn't you tell me?” Frank splutters, his eyelashes wet with tears, “You let me go through sheer HELL all alone and you said nothing! Why the fuck would you do that to me?!”  
Gerard bites his lip and fidgets anxiously, very aware of the nurses and patients scuttling up and down in the corridor outside. His throat is bone dry and he's sobered up too much to deal with this now. This was a mistake.  
“I guess... I wasn't sure,” he admits quietly, looking around at the plain gray ceiling, the barred window, and the sad small bed: anywhere but at Frank's anguished eyes. “I mean come on, people being psychic or whatever sounds like something out of a comic book. I didn't know for sure, man. I've had night terrors since I was little and I couldn't tell right away that these were different. How could I? So I had dreams about people I'd never met dying and then I woke up and didn't know or care if they were real or not. So what? The only dream I ever had that I KNEW came true was about you, Frankie. The whole reason I was in LA that night when everything happened was because I had a dream about you being hurt. I saw someone in a black helmet beating you so bad you blacked out and when I woke up I felt like I couldn't breathe! It was so fucking real...” Trailing off, Gerard sighs and scrubs his hands across his face. His fingers still smell like booze and he almost licks them. God, he needs help.

Frank shakes his head and starts chewing on his bitten-down nails, letting his Gameboy drop forgotten to the floor. He's obviously fighting tears and sits there silently for a full minute before speaking again. “So since that night in Lorna's house you think you have the same curse as me?”  
Gerard nods and moves closer to his smaller friend but Frank immediately jumps up and backs away, moving with more energy than Gerard thought he could possibly have in his starved body. “Oh no, you don't get to comfort me now, you fucking asshole!” he snaps, “It's been months and you fucking abandoned me here so just say what you came to say and leave!”

Gerard freezes, his heart and head aching, and tries again. “I'm sorry for everything you've been through, Frankie, I really am, but in case you've forgotten I did try to help you even before I understood what was going on. Brian and me and the other guys, we all tried to talk to you and keep you safe but you kept fucking running away into trouble, and I was there for you that night in LA. Hell, I nearly DIED for you in that basement! I had a dream you were in trouble and I caught a fucking plane to LA just to check up on you, turning up on poor Stacey's doorstep in the middle of the night, and when we found out where you were I burst in on a homicidal maniac who put a gun in my fucking mouth! Jesus, you think you're the only one who's suffering here? Right now booze is the only thing keeping my head together and it isn't a relapse, it's a fucking necessity! So if you don't want my help now then fine. But I know how it feels to realize you could've stopped something terrible happening to someone you care about if only you'd moved faster or thought quicker or armed yourself better!”

Panting and cringing at the echo of his own voice in the dusty air, Gerard stares miserably at his feet for a moment as salt-water stings his eyes and nose. When he looks up again Frank is standing three inches away. “You really think this is something I...we... can learn to live with?” the guitarist murmurs, licking his dry lips as his voice jumps with emotion, “You think it's that easy?”  
“Maybe. I don't know,” Gerard replies softly, “But I think we'll both be better off if we face this thing together.”

“What on earth is going on in here?” a stern voice bellows behind them. The nurse is back with two large male orderlies standing behind her and she looks ready to break up a fight. “Why were you shouting?” she barks at Gerard, “This is place of recovery and care. Are you alright, Mr Iero? I think your visitor should leave now.”  
Frank blinks and forces a weak smile, “I'm fine. Really, we're okay. Can Gerard stay a little longer and can we please have some privacy? Maybe close the door for a few minutes?”  
The nurse raises her eyebrows in surprise to hear her patient speaking again and tuts under her breath, “Five minutes,” she says reluctantly, “Then I am opening this door again, regardless of what you two might be doing in here. Also,” she adds, taking a tiny paper cup of pills and a plastic mug of water from one of her goons, “It's time for you to take your medicine.”  
Frank scowls and reluctantly grabs the pills and water, tipping both into his mouth and swallowing before dropping the empty mug on the floor and sitting down heavily on the bed with enough force to make the springs creak. “There. Happy?” he mumbles sulkily, wiping his nose on his sleeve, “See you in five minutes.”

The nurse sighs, picks up the mug and leaves with her staff, shutting the door behind her. As soon as she's gone, Frank spits the pills out into his hand from where he was hiding them under his tongue and puts them in one of the baggy pockets of his shirt. Gerard sniffs awkwardly, wishing he'd been allowed to bring in his bag of notebooks and vodka instead of leaving it in the clinic's coat-room. “What are they?” he asks, nodding at Frank's pocket. “Mood stabilisers, sedatives and some other shit,” Frank mutters, running a hand through his messy hair, “They make me sleepy but I don't wanna sleep most days so I don't take them.”  
“You look tired.”  
“I'm fuckin wiped out. I just don't wanna sleep.”  
“Because you don't want to dream.”  
“They're not dreams, Gee, and they're not nightmares either because nightmares aren't actually fucking real! They're visits to HELL and back, and the more I wake up screaming, convinced I'm bleeding to death or on fire or drowning, the more drugs the docs want to shove down my throat.”  
“I'm sorry Frankie.”  
“Sorry doesn't bring people back to life,” Frank whispers shakily, his eyes suddenly shining with fresh grief. Fumbling across the bed he grabs a pillow and hugs it so tight against his scrawny chest that his arms start to shake, “My mom told me that the cops have no idea who that bastard was who stabbed me and murdered Lorna and Anna. Can you believe that? No fucking idea! And I haven't helped anybody by knowing about their deaths, Gee, I haven't saved a s-single life!”  
Dissolving into hoarse, exhausted tears, Frank buries his face in the damp pillowcase: “It w-was all for nothing and every time I close my eyes I still s-see Lorna's face... and I die someone else's death and it's not fair and it h-hurts so fucking much! I'm so scared, all the time, every second of every day and so goddamn tired. I've lost my whole LIFE to this, Gee! I can't function, I can't breathe! I just want it to be over. I wanna sleep forever and n-never dream again. I w-wanna be the one who dies for real.”  
“Come on, Frank, you don't mean that.”  
“Yes I do!”  
“Frankie-”  
“You s-said you understand it all now, right? So then help me end this! Please, Gee... help me die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((If anyone is still reading this drabble...  
> THANK YOU SO MUCH, I bloody LOVE you!  
> I've had writer's block really bad lately  
> and my job is taking up more and more of my time  
> but I will never give up on a fic or leave a story unfinished.  
> Your comments give me life so please keep commenting  
> and thank you for each and every one!  
> I'll continue when I can.  
> Amy xx))


	20. TWENTY

“What the fuck?! No!” Gerard snaps, ripping the wet pillow from Frank's hands and forcing his weeping friend to look at him, “I'd never help you kill yourself, Frankie, why the fuck would you even ask me that?”  
“Forget it, just f-forget all of this,” Frank sobs, pressing his clenched fists over his dripping eyes as his voice stutters and shakes, “You can't understand. You never could!” Roughly wiping his wet cheeks with his sleeve, he leans across the bed and shoves his hand down a crack between the mattress and the wall, withdrawing a moist, dusty fistful of loose pills he's obviously been storing up for weeks.  
“Hey, woah, stop!” Gerard gasps, his stomach twisting with panic, “Don't be stupid, Frankie! That nurse is coming back in like three minutes and even if you did swallow all those pills she wouldn't let you die. And neither would I.”  
Frank sniffles and wipes his nose on his shirt, staring at the pills in his palm. “I don't care,” he whispers, and he sounds so drained of hope, so empty and exhausted and finished with life that Gerard knows he means it. “Well, then I'll tell on you,” the singer says desperately, “I'll tell the nurses everything and they'll put you on suicide watch and you'll never get another chance.”  
Shaking his head in despair, Frank groans miserably low in his throat and closes his tired eyes. “Come on man, you don't have to do this,” Gerard pleads, cautiously placing his hand over Frank's and covering the pills with his fingers, “I wanna help you deal with the shit in your head but you have to stay alive for me to do that. I'll do whatever I can to help you. We can help each other, right? I'm not doing too good either... with anything. I know I'm in trouble. We were both in that basement, Frankie. You're not alone anymore, kid. I promise.”  
Frank nods tensely and exhales a damp quivering breath, his small cold hand trembling under Gerard's. “I'm just so tired,” he whispers hoarsely, another tear staining his cheek, “I'm so fucking tired.”  
“I know,” Gerard murmurs, carefully scraping the pills out of his friend's hand and pulling him into a warm close hug, “But it's gonna be okay.”  
Like a frightened child, Frank buries his wet face in Gerard's coat and starts sobbing and the singer rubs his friend's back and holds him tight until he calms down. 

A minute later the old nurse pokes her head around the door and Gerard shoves the pills into his pocket before she can spot them. “Are you boys alright in here?”  
“Fine,” Frank sniffles, jerking out of Gerard's embrace and self-consciously wiping his eyes, “Go away.”  
The nurse frowns. “Visiting hours are over,” she says firmly, stepping into the room, “I'm sorry but your friend will have to come back another day.”  
“That's alright,” Gerard sighs, getting to his feet and avoiding Frank's gaze as the young guitarist stares frantically at him, obviously not wanting him to go, “I'll be back soon Frankie and maybe I'll bring Mikey with me huh? I mean, if you wanna see him. He misses you.”  
Frank nods haltingly and looks at the floor, hunching his shoulders and curling his tattooed fingers around the cuffs of his sleeves, dragging them down over his hands, “Sure, whatever.”  
“I will be back,” Gerard says again, trying to sound more sure of himself, “I promise.”

***  
After Gerard leaves, escorted by Nurse Williams, Frank closes the door behind them and lets out a trembling breath. Sliding down the smooth wooden door to the floorboards, he sits there hugging his knees for a while and gnawing on his ragged fingertips, trying to slow his racing heartbeat. Gerard took his pills away. Now what the hell is he supposed to do?

Leaning his weary head against the door, he listens to the constant buzz of footsteps and voices and distant screaming that is the clinic and shivers weakly. The New Jersey sky is gray and bleak outside and it's too fucking cold in here. Struggling to his feet, he walks slowly over to the window and slams it shut whispering “Bitch” under his breath. The effort of moving makes him light-headed and he sits down heavily on the bed, the mattress barely moving under his pitiful weight. Maybe he should eat something. It's been at least a couple of days since any food passed his lips. 

Looking gloomily at the untouched dinner plate of vegetables on his bed he rolls his eyes and grabs a stick of cold slimy broccoli, shoving it into his mouth and chewing slowly. It's pretty gross but he forces it down anyway, followed by another and another until he feels like maybe he won't pass out this evening and it's okay to stop. 

For a couple more hours he hides away on his own, wishing he had a guitar to play with and trying to forget the sad look on Gerard's face and the tang of alcohol on his former bandmate's breath. So many people's lives have been ruined by this curse in his brain. Why can't anyone else see that he deserves to die here? Without him around, My Chemical Romance could get going again with a new guitarist and Gerard might be okay. Anything would be better than living this miserable excuse for a life.

To keep himself awake, he plays some Super Mario on his Gameboy but after an hour the dumb thing's batteries die and he's forced to leave his sanctuary and venture out into the clinic's rec-room to find an electric socket and recharge it. A sandy-haired male nurse in his late thirties is lounging behind the rec-room desk with his feet up, reading an old MAD magazine and half-watching the few patients who have ended up in this glorified living room tonight. Frank sits down in the most uncomfortable chair he can find and edgily watches his Gameboy charge, wishing it would hurry up and let him leave. Two of the ward's catatonic patients are sat in front of the TV like statues, motionless, silent and glazed-eyed in their chairs, and he tries not to look at them in case they can see him staring and get offended. A schizophrenic kid named Patrick or Peter or something is sprawled on a green beanbag in the corner scribbling stuff into a tattered notebook and whispering to himself. All the other patients must be in bed or group therapy.

The cheap plastic clock on the wall is tick, tick, ticking towards Lights-Out Time and Frank's stomach tightens with anxiety at the thought of being shut up alone in his room all night with no drugs or distractions to block out whatever dreams may come. Fidgeting nervously, he clenches his hands and crosses and uncrosses his legs about a hundred times in five minutes, trying to concentrate on the Tom and Jerry cartoon playing on the TV but it's not enough to hold his attention. For a few seconds his tired eyes wander around the room and when he happens to glance at the barred window above the kid on the beanbag's head Lorna's carved-up face is lurking in the tinted glass staring back at him.

Clenching his teeth, Frank swallows the rancid bile rising up his throat and jumps to his feet, dashing back to his room and slamming the door behind him. Lorna's mournful ghost is waiting for him in the black night outside his bedroom window and he shuts the curtains on her before yanking the sheets off his bed and curling up beneath them on the hard floor, trembling all over. His face is wet with cold sweat and he can't catch his breath. Cramming a handful of cotton quilt into his mouth, he bites down on it to keep from screaming so none of the nurses will come running, and moans and sobs quietly into the damp fabric until his eyelids grow heavy with exhaustion and he can't force them open anymore. It's been three days since he last slept and he can't fight the crushing wave of weariness aching through every inch of his skin and bones. They don't even allow caffeinated coffee in the clinic because it's too disruptive to patients' moods.

By the time the night nurse makes his rounds at 10pm to make sure everyone's lights are out, Frank has sunk body and soul into a sleep so deep he doesn't even stir when he's lifted up onto his bed for the night. But for once there's no sign of Lorna or Anna behind his eyelids. Instead Gerard is there with him in the darkness, cuddling him tight and whispering soothing hopes and promises into his ear, and it feels good and comfy and safe... Until Dream-Gerard suddenly screams and bursts into flames and the shock awakens Frank with his heart in his throat. His best friend is going to die!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hi readers, sorry again for the delay.  
> I have the worst writer's block in the world right now and it's killing me!  
> Seriously, if you have any tips on how to beat writer's block please share them.  
> And your comments mean the world to me so please let me know you're still out there  
> and I will try and read all of your stories too.  
> xo))


	21. TWENTY ONE

At 7am a clinic team member sticks her head around Frank's door and announces “Morning Checks!” before ducking out again and moving on to make sure the next patient is also alive and well in their room. Frank rolls groggily onto his back, still in last night's clothes, and groans as tremors shudder through his aching stomach. He spent half the night in the toilet attached to his room, his guts churning and puking with anxiety while he forced himself to stay awake and watch the sun rise through the tiny window, too afraid to go back to sleep. Gerard is going to die soon. He can feel it in his bones. All those flames and all that pain!

Rubbing his face, Frank sits up shakily and grabs a half-empty soda bottle from the floor, swallowing the stale sugary liquid. Dawn light trickles through a crack in the curtains and stings his red-rimmed eyes and he sniffles miserably, his ears ringing with dead screams. The room reeks of sweat and scorched flesh and he needs to get out. Unfortunately, the moment he steps into the sterile clinic corridor, a nurse in red scrubs appears beside him holding a clipboard. “Good morning, Mr Iero, how are you feeling?” she asks softly, looking him up and down with obvious pity before making a note on her papers. Frank shrugs and tries to push past her but she quickly steps in front of him and blocks his way. “You have an appointment with your therapist in Room C at nine thirty and, er...perhaps you'd like to take a shower today when you feel ready? We have to keep up good hygiene standards around here. Of course if you don't like the showers then I can send someone to give you a sponge bath in your room...” Frank scowls darkly. “I'll take the shower option thanks,” he grumbles, edging away towards the canteen as the corridor blurs in his woozy head.

He needs to eat something but plain toast is all his sickly guts can handle this morning. He's sitting alone in a corner munching slowly when someone walks up and taps his shoulder. Turning with a startled squeak, he's surprised to see the kid from the rec-room last night standing over him. Actually “the kid” is probably the wrong phrase because close-up this guy looks a few years older than Frank and is definitely a couple of inches taller. The pale olive skin of the guy's hands and arms is scarred and tattooed and his black hair has been sheared short but somehow still manages to look scruffy. “Hey,” he mutters tonelessly, his brown eyes dulled and dilated with high-strength medication, “You forgot this I think.”  
Frank blinks in confusion until he realizes that the dude is holding out his forgotten Gameboy so he grabs it back and nervously hugs it against his chest.  
The guy shrugs, squinting down at Frank's face like he's trying to figure something out. “You're welcome,” he says slowly, “I'm Pete by the way. What's your name?”  
Frank shakes his head, not wanting to answer. Anxiety like this hits him out of the blue on a regular basis these days and his throat feels like it's closing up so he can't find his voice. Bolting to his feet so hard the table shakes, he starts backing away as his skin crawls under Pete's weird stare. “I like your ink,” the older man mumbles, sliding his blurry gaze over Frank's exposed neck and wrists. “Th-Thanks,” Frank stammers breathlessly, dashing out of the canteen with drugged brown eyes still burning into him.

Back safe in his room, he slams the door and leans wearily against it with his heart hammering in his chest. He's so tired he can barely see and all his tortured body wants to do is curl up under the musty bedcovers and block out the world with sleep but he can't stand the thought of watching Gerard die again in his dreams. He has to figure out a way to contact Gee and warn him to stay away from fires or anything flammable and he needs to be awake to do that. Besides, he told that nosey nurse he would take a shower. If he ever wants to leave this fucking clinic he should probably do what he's told. Tossing the Gameboy at his pillows with a sigh, he cautiously sniffs the armpits of his shirt and recoils at the sour stench. Yeah okay, a little soap and water probably wouldn't hurt.

***  
The Men's Ward showers are usually guarded all day by clinic attendants and every crevice and corner of the tiled, metallic maze is brightly lit and scrubbed clean. It's still pretty early so Frank doesn't have to queue when he steps timidly into the large echoing chambers and a fat middle-aged man in scrubs nods him towards one of the vacant stalls without a word. There are no curtains or doors anywhere to make sure none of the patients can hurt themselves without somebody knowing. So much for privacy. Taking some deep breaths, Frank hangs his towel up and slowly strips down to his boxer shorts, not daring to look at the ugly map of fat pink scars littering his arms and legs. The terror and pain of his time in Lorna's basement with the killer in black is still fresh in his memory and tears of sad self-pity warm the backs of his eyes as he turns on the water with a trembling hand. The hot steady stream gushes down over his head and shoulders and he stands with his back to the slippery wall and deep-breathes the moist steamy air until his racing mind and knotted stomach calm down enough for him to think. Perhaps Gerard will come back and visit him this evening like he said he might and then warning him about the fire will be easy. But what if Gee doesn't show up for some reason or what if he's too drunk to even remember his promise to return?  
Slowly rubbing soap into his greasy hair, Frank tries to think of a back-up plan. Maybe he could ask to make a phone call at the nurse's desk and then call Gerard and tell him he's in danger. Or maybe he should call Gee's parents instead, or Mikey or even Ray, and they could keep an eye on Gerard from a distance. If only he could leave this stupid clinic, then he could try and stop the future tragedy himself. He could be useful for a change instead of just being a crazy idiot who gets everyone around him hurt or killed.

His thoughts are suddenly interrupted by a shadow falling across his closed eyelids and for one terrifying moment he thinks Lorna and the other angry dead are back. But when he opens his eyes he sees Pete. The older man is standing just inches away from the flowing water, half-naked and looking totally out of it, and Frank jerks back in fright as the cooling shower soaks his shivering skin. He opens his mouth to call for help from the attendant but his voice fails him for the millionth time and only a hoarse gasp emerges from his lips.  
“You wanna do something?” Pete rasps, stepping even closer and forcing Frank to shrink back against the wet tiles to avoid being touched by his scarred hands, “We... I could help you y'know. I could make you like me.”  
Frank shakes his head, water running into his eyes. “W-What the fuck?” he finally stammers in a frightened whisper, “Get out of here, man!”  
“You didn't want me?” Pete whines, blinking in puzzlement and stepping so close that his clammy chest touches Frank's bony ribcage and the running water seals their wet skin together. “I can change that. I'll make you like me.”  
“No...please just go away,” Frank begs, spitting water as it runs into his mouth and eyes, “Leave me alone!”  
“Here, lemme show you,” Pete rambles, dropping to his knees in the swirling soapy water and clumsily grabbing the waistband of Frank's shorts, pulling them down around the younger man's skinny thighs and taking him whole into his mouth.  
Frank gasps, his lungs screaming for air, and his eyes feel like they're falling out of his skull, “NO!” he yelps, shoving Pete away and yanking his shorts back up, “Get the fuck away from me, you freak!”

“Hey!” the fat shower attendant cries, appearing in the entrance to the cubicle and pulling the two patients apart, “I'm so sorry,” he murmurs to Frank, helping Pete to his feet and pushing him towards the door, “He's on a ton of heavy meds right now and he shouldn't have been allowed to wander.”  
“Yeah you think?!” Frank yells sarcastically, his breath still coming in frightened gasps as the attendant shuffles away. That's the last time he's taking a shower in this place.

At nine-thirty he goes to his therapy appointment and sits in front of Dr Robertson for almost an hour without saying a word. “Come on, Frank,” the doctor pleads, “The nurses told me you started speaking again. Don't you want to talk to me?”  
Stubbornly biting his lip, Frank curls up in his chair with his hands buried in the sleeves of his hoodie and stares at his scuffed sneakers. The shoelaces were removed when he entered the ward so he couldn't use them to hang himself. Flashes of Gerard's face blistering and burning to ashes flicker and glare at the corners of his eyes as he anxiously runs his tongue over the scar on his mouth.  
“I'm going to transfer you to another therapist, Frank. I don't think our sessions are helping and I think you might be more comfortable with somebody else. I wish you all the best for the future...”

***  
Lunchtime crawls around but Frank only manages to eat two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes before he starts feeling sick with a shivering creeping dread. Wracked with fresh anxiety, he goes to the nurse's station and asks if he has any visitors coming today but no one has asked to see him. Panic slithers into his belly and in desperation he asks to make a phone call, well aware that a member of clinic staff will be listening to every word. With trembling fingers he dials his mom's number and asks her to come and get him out of the clinic for good. “Please, Mom, I hate it here and it's so hard... I can't sleep, I can't eat and everyone here is fucking crazy! I need family around me, please let me come home.”  
“Oh Frankie, I'm so glad you're talking again baby, but are you sure you're ready to leave?”  
“Yes!”  
“I don't want to sign you out and take you away from the doctors if they're helping you...”  
“They're NOT helping me! Jesus! NOBODY can help me here! They're just making things worse. I...I miss my friends, Mom, I need to see Gerard...a-and Mikey. I NEED to get out, please!” Tears have soaked into his voice and they trickle down his cheeks in rivers while Linda Iero sighs and worries and argues over her son's request. Agreeing to have him committed to the clinic in the first place was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. “Mom... Mommy, please let me come home. I'm dying in here...” Eventually Linda agrees to come and see him the next day to try to get him released and, emotionally and physically exhausted, Frank quickly whispers goodbye and hangs up the phone. When he gets back to his room he bursts into tears and can't stop crying for so long that he actually swallows the dose of mood stabilisers and sleeping pills he's given at bedtime just so he can be unconscious. At 2am the roar and sizzle of flames and burning flesh invades his dreams again and Lorna and Anna stand over his bed while he sleeps and watch him toss and turn through another night of terrors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Sorry this is a filler chapter but writer's block is killing me  
> and it's all I can come up with right now.  
> I hope people are still reading this. I will continue it to the end, I promise. xx))


	22. TWENTY-TWO

The darkness has him. There's no way out. He's trapped alone in a claustrophobic room with black shadows hissing and biting at his flesh. He's blind and can't move a muscle and it's too hot to breathe. Under his nervous feet it sounds like glass is breaking. The darkness won't lift no matter how wide he opens his terrified eyes and his chest tightens as the old burns on his arm itch and throb. Oh god, whose death is he going through now?  
Panting with anxiety, he starts to choke when tangy wet whiskey floods his mouth instead of oxygen, pouring down his throat! Coughing and spluttering as the burning booze floods his airways, he hears the hissing shadows grow louder and it's so hot in this tiny black place he's getting dizzy. The whiskey bubbles down into his lungs and he can't breathe! Sweating through his clothes, he desperately tries to gasp some air but only more alcohol washes over his tongue and fills his chest and he tries to spit it out or cough it up but he can't. He's fucking drowning!  
A voice hollers in the dark, calling his name, and it sounds likes someone he knows but they're too far away to help. Suffocating on the fluid in his lungs, he collapses to his knees as consciousness starts to leaves him. But just before he blacks out the shadows explode in a blaze of crackling orange flames and sulphuric smoke and then he's burning in fire both inside and out! Burning away to ash and bone and nothingness...

“Frankie!”  
The voice cries his name again, louder now, but he can barely hear it as he dies.  
“Frank... Baby, open your eyes!”  


Forcing himself awake with a jolt that nearly makes him puke, Frank sees a familiar tear-blurred ceiling above him and tastes his own spit in his mouth. The darkness and flames are gone and there's no ocean of alcohol drowning him inside. He's alive and he can finally breathe again and his own broken voice is screaming in panic and fear. The bed under his body rocks as he lurches upright, gasping and crying, and his mother pulls his trembling body into a frantic hug. “It's okay, Frankie,” she murmurs, stroking his sweat-damp hair as he buries his face in her shoulder and clutches her as tight as he can. There's a burly nurse standing nearby with a loaded syringe in his hand and a doctor in a white coat hovering in the doorway. “You were just having another nightmare, sweetie,” Linda whispers, cuddling her crying offspring close, "I'm here now, it's alright. Shhhh... I've come to take you home.”

***  
Frank sits in silence for the car journey back to his mom's house in Trenton. Curled up in the passenger seat of her ancient Chevy, he hugs his knees to his skinny chest and stares miserably at the scars on his arms with reddened eyes, only nodding or grunting in response to Linda's tentative questions. After a while she gives up trying to coax her son into telling her what's hurting him and turns on the radio. A Bon Jovi song fills the awkward silence. 

That morning when Linda arrived at the clinic clutching identification documents and a phone number for the family lawyer – just in case – she wasn't expecting to find Frank still asleep, let alone so paralysed by his night terrors that he couldn't seem to wake up. A nurse and a doctor had bust into his room to sedate him but Linda charged past them as soon as she heard her son's voice screaming and grabbed Frank's hand, calling him out of his nightmare and calming him down when he woke up too traumatized to speak. All he could do was cry and cling to her blouse, trembling like a leaf in her arms, and his skin felt so warm she was sure he had a fever. Release papers were swiftly signed and she packed Frank's medication and clothes into a bag while he sat shivering on the bed with his head in his hands. As they walked through the clinic doors, Linda felt her son's quivering fingers grab hers and squeeze so hard she almost winced. He was twenty-three years old and as scared and helpless as a lost toddler. It broke her heart to see him like this.

The Bon Jovi song fades into something else and Linda turns the radio dial to Frank's favorite New Jersey rock station in an attempt to cheer him up. A Black Flag song booms out of the speakers and he lifts his head slightly at the familiar chords as the faintest ghost of a smile lights up his eyes. Linda turns left onto their street, sunlight flashing on the windshield, and is just pulling into the driveway when the Black Flag song ends and the DJ puts on My Chemical Romance's latest single 'Helena'. Frowning worriedly, she kills the engine and moves to turn off the song but one of Frank's hands shoots out and stops her. “I wanna listen,” he says softly, his gaze focused on the radio like it's the only thing in the world as his own guitar-playing and Gerard's energetic vocals fill the quiet car. When the song finishes, Frank turns the radio off, breathing quietly. “Are you alright, sweetie?” Linda asks, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Yeah, that was nice,” Frank replies, sounding surprised, “I think I needed to hear that.”

Mother and son walk into the house together and Linda starts making grilled cheese sandwiches to fatten up her underfed offspring while Frank takes his bag and her phone up to his room and shuts the door, flopping down on the bed and punching in Gerard's cell number. No answer and the voicemail function is turned off.  
Sighing, he tries calling Gee's parents' house instead and after a few rings somebody picks up.  
“Hello, Way Residence.”  
“Mikey?”  
“Hey Frank! It's good to hear your voice, man. Your mom told us she was picking you up today. How are you feeling?”  
“Couple ould be better. Listen, Mikes, is Gerard around? He's not answering his phone and, uh, I thought maybe after he came to visit me the other day he'd wanna talk...or something.”  
“I think Gerard's in his room,” Mikey mumbles, his happy friendly tone vanishing in an instant, “And it's lunchtime so he's probably passed out drunk already. Either that or still hungover from yesterday.”  
“Oh. Shit.”  
“Yeah.”  
“How bad is he?”  
“Not as bad as before,” Mikey sighs, “But not far off. He misses the music. We all do. It sucks having to put the band on this stupid indefinite break when we were really starting to take off.”  
“Yeah I know, dude, I'm in the fucking band too,” Frank snaps defensively, “And it's not like I meant for any of this shit to happen!”  
“I know. I wasn't accusing you. Just blowing off steam I guess.” The sound of a TV blares in the background. Outside Frank's window a plane soars across the sky.  
“Mikey, can you do something for me?”  
“Sure. What?”  
“Keep an eye on Gee for me, okay? I mean it, really watch him closely if you can. I've got this bad feeling and... I'm gonna come over and see him as soon as I can but I don't think Mom is gonna let me out tonight.”  
“I guess I can,” Mikey grumbles, “But I'm not my brother's keeper, man. I have my own shit going on.”  
“I know. Sorry. I just... it helps my anxiety and stuff to know that everyone I care about is safe. Please can you do this for me?”  
“Fine.”  
“Thanks.”  
“No problem.”  
“And Mikey?”  
“Yeah?”  
“You have smoke detectors in your house right? Including in the basement where Gee's room is?”  
“Um...yeah.”  
“Good.”  
“Frank, are you okay? You sound-”  
“I gotta go, Mikey, sorry. Speak soon.”  
Hanging up with a shaking hand, Frank throws the phone on the bed and tries to breathe normally as panicky paranoia oozes through his mind like ice water. Gerard will be fine, he tells himself, grabbing a nearly pillow and hugging it tight with white-knuckled hands. He'll be fine, he'll be fine, there's no fire, there's no...  
Out of the corner of his eye, movement flashes in the mirror hanging on his closet door and he turns to see Lorna's ghostly face staring out at him from between old band posters and stickers. Her eyes are gone, empty bloody sockets staring at him in silence, and behind her, as faint and transparent as a spider's web, he can see Gerard's charred corpse.

Linda nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears an almighty crash come from Frank's room and immediately assumes the worst. She's already running to investigate when he comes flying through his bedroom door and charges down the stairs so fast he almost trips, crashing into her in the hallway with his eyes wide and drunk with panic. “What's wrong?” she cries, grabbing his shoulders and forcing him to stop running before he reaches the front door. “I-I saw...there's...I can't shut them out!” he cries, twisting out of her grasp and taking another two steps towards the door before stumbling and collapsing to his hands and knees. “Oh god. Sweetie, talk to me, what's wrong?” Linda pleads.  
“I saw... n-nothing,” Frank gasps, shaking his head like he's trying to convince himself as well as her, “I'm okay. I'm fine... Mom, please don't send me back to the clinic. I can be okay, I swear!”  
“Honey,” Linda says firmly, kneeling down beside him, “I won't ever send you back there if you don't want to go. You're safe with me, I promise. No matter how long it takes you to feel better, I'll be right beside you. You've been through so much and I'm so, so proud of you Frankie. You're gonna be alright.”  
Frank sniffles and nods, getting wearily to his feet and following his mom into the kitchen where he sits down at the breakfast bar with his arms folded in front of him. The knuckles of his right hand are cut up and lightly bleeding. “I smashed my mirror,” he explains sheepishly, “Sorry.”  
“That's okay,” Linda smiles reassuringly, putting a plate of grilled cheese and a glass of juice in front of him, “I'll fetch the first aid kit.” 

While she's gone Frank picks at his food and slurps a mouthful of juice, thinking about everything he's seen and dreamt over the last few months. The death dreams are part of his life now and he's going to have to accept that and learn to deal with them, no matter how hard it seems. That's the only way he can get his life and his band back together. Hearing 'Helena' on the radio earlier stirred something deep inside him that he'd almost forgotten about: his fierce passion for playing music with his friends. As long as he has that he can survive anything, dammit. He just needs to figure out a way of balancing the nightmares with reality; to help the people he can and forgive himself for the strangers he can't save. The masked man who tried to kill everyone afflicted with this curse is dead now and the police are keeping tabs on the case. Everyone he cares about is only a phone call away and he's safe at home with a parent who will do anything to protect him. If Gerard is going to die in a fire then it probably won't be in the Way family home surrounded by fire alarms and people who love him. It's going to be somewhere else. Somewhere dark and claustrophobic filled with broken glass and whiskey. Frank needs more information but the dreams haven't been very clear so far. He needs more details and to get more details he needs more sleep. It's time to suck it up and be brave. “Where are my fucking pills?” he mumbles, getting shakily to his feet just as his mother returns carrying some band-aids and bowl of clean water. “Mom?”  
“Yes sweetie?”  
“Where did you put the meds they prescribed me at the clinic? I think I need to take them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ************* Yo, wonderful people! Your comments help me beat my writer's block so please feel free to tell me what you like or what you think might happen next. I love you all. xx**********************


	23. TWENTY-THREE

Under the last bridge out of town everything is dark and damp and reeks of stale piss. The floor is made of garbage and the ancient curved ceiling is painted with slime and bird shit. The walls are covered in graffiti but in this neighbourhood no one cares enough to clean it up. Cars rumble overhead on their way out to the suburbs but nobody respectable would dare to walk down here anymore. This is a place for broken, forgotten things and only broken, forgotten people come here. Junkies and hobos or miserable combinations of both.

Gerard shudders as he stumbles under the dripping dank bridge for the third time this week, his filthy sneakers skidding on the wet cracked pavement. He hates himself for being here but this is the only connection to his old addict life that he hasn't burned. It's midnight on a cold Monday and everything is shadowed and layered with threat. Hungover doesn't even begin to describe how shitty he feels. His nose won't stop running and his tongue feels furry and dry. His stomach still hasn't settled down from when he was vomiting cheap whiskey and coke snot all over his mom's rosebushes yesterday and he knows that his little brother is starting to hate him. Even worse, his nightmares are wrecking his sleep. He can't even pass out drunk in peace anymore without waking up screaming and sweating through his clothes with hellfire dancing in his eyelids. Honestly he'd do anything right now to feel better. Peering through the gloom with sore, crusty eyes, he spies Johnny lurking behind a gang of homeless bag ladies huddled around a makeshift fire and shambles over to the tall skinny dealer with his head hanging.

“Hey Mr Famous, where's your entourage?” Johnny drawls sarcastically, narrowing his eyes as he looks the singer over. “Shut up,” Gerard sighs, his voice husky from too much smoking and drinking, “That shit's over now. Jesus.”  
Johnny raises his eyebrows and leads his client further away from bag-lady central. “Whatever man. You want the usual?”  
“No, I need double this time.”  
“Okay, but can you afford it if you ain't singin on MTV no more? I don't take nothin but cash money. No freebies.”  
Gerard nods shakily, wiping his nose on his hoodie sleeve, and fumbles in his pocket for a handful of crumpled bills. “Here.”  
“Aight,” Johnny smirks, counting the money and shoving it quickly into his sweatpants pocket. “I'll leave the stuff in the usual place but wait til I'm gone before you pick it up this time.”  
“Okay.”  
Johnny starts to walk away, kicking up garbage water with his flashy Nikes, but then he turns back, his expression curious in the low light. “I gotta ask, man. How come you need so much these days? You're not sharin my shit around are you?”  
“No way,” Gerard replies, shaking his head so his greasy hair falls into his eyes, “I just don't wanna sleep that's all. The pills and coke counteract the booze I'm drinking. This shit keeps me awake.”  
“And how come you don't wanna sleep?” Johnny insists, looming tall and lanky over Gerard's shivering form.  
“It's...complicated,” the singer mumbles, rubbing his aching stomach through his grubby clothes, “I have these... I dunno, nightmares I guess. Terrors. Sometimes I see flames and sometimes I'm dying, like I'm burning to death and it physically hurts! Shit, it's like the worst trip in history. Nothing else helps.”  
“Sorry I asked,” Johnny says, holding up his hands and walking off into the night with his shoulders hunched, “That's some crazy shit, man.”

**  
When Gerard gets home, his hoodie pockets bulging with drugs and a bottle of knock-off Jack Daniels, the whole house is in darkness. His parents are away for the weekend and Mikey is probably in bed sleeping or jerking off like a normal person.

Staggering downstairs to the basement room he's slept in since childhood, Gerard shuts and bolts the door and flips on the lights, sitting down heavily on the unmade bed and dropping his aching head into his hands. He feels nauseous and hungry at the same time and his hands are freezing but his t-shirt is stuck to his back with sweat. Shrugging off his hoodie, he slides miserably off the bed and crawls over to his stereo, slipping on a pair of tatty '90s headphones and pressing PLAY on a Misfits album. Harsh punk guitars and Glenn Danzig's evil-Elvis vocals flood his brain and he turns the volume up so high he's almost in pain. Dragging the bag of drugs out of his hoodie, he cuts two fat lines of cocaine on a hardback Hellboy comic with a razorblade and crushes a few uppers into the mix. Using a wrinkled dollar bill, he snorts that shit up until he can feel his brain expanding and taste the music roaring in his ears. Lifting the booze to his lips, he chugs a couple of sour shots, coughing and laughing when he drinks it too fast, and lies down relieved and smiling on his back on the dust-bunny covered floor. Melodies and endorphins charge through his veins and shine from his dilated eyes and he feels like he could fly. He won't fall asleep tonight that's for damn sure.

**  
Long after his mother has gone to bed, Frank lies awake on his bedroom floor listening to Anti-Flag on his ipod and shivering in the chill draught whistling under his door. He's naked except for a pair of boxer shorts but the cold helps him stay awake while he tries to decide if he really wants to plunge headfirst into the glimpses of hell bleeding through his brain. His hand is striped with band-aids and the broken glass from his mirror has been swept up and thrown away. He's drawn the curtains tight and shut his cell phone in a drawer, avoiding its reflective screen and any other shiny surface in which he might see an army of accusing blood-splattered corpses staring miserably at him from their shitty-looking afterlife.

His favorite Les Paul guitar, Pansy, is lying on his bed with her strings freshly played and the warm tingling in his callused fingertips is such a comfort he could cry. It's time for this pain and anxiety to end. He can save Gerard and get My Chemical Romance back on track, if only he can summon up the courage to not be afraid of his own mind anymore. He has to do this. He NEEDS to do this.  
Sitting up achy and cold, he climbs into bed, pulling the covers over his thin body and nuzzling his face into the pillows until he warms up. Rolling over, he peeps out from under the sheets at the bedside table and grabs the bottle of pills and thermos of water he put there earlier, swallowing the recommended dose of medication before he can change his mind. Burrowing deep under the blankets, he turns out his bedside lamp and shuts his eyes. The meds work quickly in his empty stomach and before he blacks out he mutters, “Rest in Peace, Lorna and Anna... But stop fucking haunting me, you assholes!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Sorry this chapter is so short!  
> Feedback would be great, even a one-word comment helps me write.  
> I love everyone who gives their time to read my dumb stories! xx))


	24. TWENTY-FOUR

Linda Iero was always a deep sleeper but after her husband left (an ugly divorce when Frank was a child) she started wearing earplugs at night to block out the sound of silence from the empty bed beside her. Sleeping alone was suddenly too much to bear, but if she wore earplugs then the silence felt like her choice and not something forced upon her by loneliness.

She still wears them now and because of this she can't hear the muffled groans of her son sleeping in the next room, doped up on so much medication that he can't wake up from the horrors tearing him apart. No nurses or friends are around to shake him out of his nightmares this time and the traumatizing visions rage freely through his head in a hellish stampede:

A torturous din of angry voices and paralyzing pains assault his unconscious mind without mercy until he's reduced to a crying frightened little child and then a dozen iron hands grab his body and lock him in a dark coffin to die! There's no air or light and he knows that he's been buried a mile underground and no one can hear his cries. Spiders crawl in his hair and sweat stings his eyes and he can't sit up – there's not even enough space for him to lift his head. Panting and wailing with panic as the claustrophobic coffin walls close in tighter and tighter and the creaking wood starts to crush him, he chokes on a sudden hail of thick black grave dirt that splatters his sweaty face and runs down his neck, crying breathlessly for help that will never come...

… Until the dark coffin vanishes in a blur of splinters and he's suddenly lying on the grimy floor of a public restroom. He's tied up and punch-drunk and the towering bulk of Lorna's killer is alive and standing over him holding a sharp steel butcher knife. Shaking with fear, Frank screams into a dirty rag that's been shoved in his mouth and sharp wire ropes cut his wrists and ankles to shreds as he struggles to free himself and escape this miserable fate. The killer leans down in a haze of dirty smoke and with one swipe of his hand slashes his prey's throat in a spray of red gore. Frank splutters in silent shock, drowning in his own blood as it gushes from his neck and spurts from his mouth and he dies choking and hurting...

... And in the blink of an eye the scummy restroom morphs into Gerard's quiet bedroom in the basement of the Way's ranch house in Belleville. The deadly wound in Frank's neck is gone but every inch of his body aches and his throat is clogged with tears. Several of Gerard's possessions shine in the gloom around him like dying stars and he recognises an 80s Misfits poster; some Iron Maiden records; a Lord of the Rings replica sword and a box of sketching pencils but Gerard himself isn't here.  
Trembling with the trauma of his previous vision he tries to stand but he's too weak and falls to his knees just as a dozen broken liquor bottles rain down from above and smash the floor out from under his legs, dropping him into a fiery pit of roaring flames.

A wave of searing heat scorches the hair off his body a millisecond before his raw red skin is set ablaze and the fire consumes him in a torture of white-hot agony. He feels like he's been dipped in acid as the searing flames chew through his flesh, dissolving him into bubbling yellow fat cells, blackened muscle and boiling blood. Reduced to a burning shrivelled monster, he screams himself hoarse as his lips drop away in melting chunks and dribble down his roasted neck. Just before his eyeballs boil and burst in their sockets, he sees Gerard standing next to him in the fire, already a charred and smoking corpse...

**  
At 3am Linda wakes with a knot of anxiety in her belly and groggily reaches for the glass of water by her bed. As she sips the lukewarm liquid she pulls the earplug out of her left ear to reshape it and hears a loud bang coming from the lower floor of the house. With her heart racing, she listens to the shadows and the familiar sound of a car door slamming and an engine sputtering to life quickly echo outside before a rumbling vehicle growls away down the street.

Dread and mother's intuition stir in her gut and she quickly slips on her dressing gown and hurries down the hall to check Frankie's room. The door is wide open and her son is gone so she hits the lights and finds a pile of crumpled sheets and pillows on the floor, damp with sweat and spotted with blood. The sight chills her to the bone. Yelling Frank's name, she rushes to the bathroom where she can hear the shower running and freezes in the doorway. Frank isn't here either but splashes of scarlet blood are clotting in the sink and wet footprints and towels litter the floor. The toilet is stained with vomit and even more blood and the mirror has been spun crookedly to face the wall. “Ohmygod,” she whispers, running downstairs to find Frank's shoes missing and her car keys gone from the hook by the door. Outside, the driveway is deserted and it's starting to rain. “Oh Frankie, no!” she sobs, tears filling her eyes as thunder rumbles in the night sky. She has to find her poor boy before something bad happens to him again.

**  
TWO HOURS EARLIER:

Convinced he's about to die, Frank's body forces his mind back to consciousness and jolts him awake so hard he stops breathing, blinded by the terror of his hallucinations. Falling off the bed in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, he half-stumbles, half-crawls to the bathroom as his skin peels away in sizzling strips of flaming ash. Flames roar in his ears and his head hurts so much it feels like his skull is cracking open. All he can taste is blood and smoke and he's dying! He's fucking BURNING! Falling into the bath, he fumbles blindly for the shower lever and turns it on, collapsing under the cool rush of icy water and passing out into silent weightless oblivion.

When he comes around a few minutes later, soaking wet and shivering with cold, the fire is gone and he's so relieved to find himself alive and unburned that he starts to cry. Shuddering sobs of moist air fill his lungs and as the haze of death and trauma lifts, he gazes gratefully around the safe shadowy bathroom of his mom's house and sees no knives, coffins or flames anywhere. A migraine headache is pounding away in his skull though and he curls up exhausted under the raining shower hose as water slowly fills the bath and gently laps at his tense, feverish skin.

After a few minutes of sitting in the dark, he forces himself to stand up on trembling legs and pull the cord for the bathroom light but the harsh glare worsens his headache and he cowers back into the tub with a clumsy splash and a whimper of pain as the cold water drenches his goose-bumped skin. Biting his tongue, he buries his face in his hands and concentrates on breathing slowly and deeply through his chattering teeth until he's sure he won't black out again. Thank fuck his mom is a heavy sleeper because she would totally freak out if she saw him like this. He literally feels like death.

Slowly lowering his trembling fingers, he looks at them through blurry eyes and his heart skips a beat because they're stained ruby red. Fearfully touching his wet face he realizes that his nose is bleeding heavily and trails of inky crimson have run down his bony arms to mix with the bathwater. The death dreams must have really done a number on him this time. Fuck, what if he has brain damage?!

Whimpering softly, he drags his weary bones out of the bath and pulls the plug but leaves the shower running because the soothing rush of water is something he really needs to hear right now. For a couple of minutes he stands dripping and shivering in his wet shorts by the sink, trying to avoid the mirror with his eyes as drops of blood trickle down his lips and chin and splatter into the plughole. He has no idea what to do now, although stopping his nosebleed would probably be a good start. Shakily grabbing a dry towel, he flips the mirror around and presses the fluffy fabric to his nose, trying to remember the Gerard-related parts of his nightmares but he can't picture anything through the throbbing pain in his head. Snotty nasal blood runs down his throat and he feels his aching stomach convulse so he drops to knees in a sadly familiar routine and lifts the toilet lid just in time to puke the soggy blood-streaked remains of his dinner into the cold bleached bowl. No wonder he's all skin and bones these days: he can't remember the last time he was able to keep down a decent meal.

When the nausea passes he wearily pulls another towel off the rack behind him before trudging back to his room with some painkillers for his headache, wiping tired tears and blood off his face. Huddling up on the damp bed, he swallows a double dose of nerve-numbing pills, forcing himself to keep breathing as a heavy bitter panic grows in his nauseous guts. The fire will happen tonight, he's sure of it.

Just before 3am when his nose has dried up and his headache is dull enough to let him move around without fainting or barfing, he slowly gets out of bed again and gingerly dresses himself in some old jeans, a clean shirt and two baggy sweaters. Forgetting about the mess in the bathroom he creeps downstairs and tries calling Gerard's cell phone once, twice, and then three times but there's no answer. That's not really surprising at this time of night but whatever disaster is going to kill his friend he's certain that it's already in motion. Gerard could be dead right now and he wouldn't even know it yet! Maybe Mikey too. There's a dozen different reasons why people could die in a fire: broken smoke alarms, jammed locks, gas leak explosions, arsonists... A single spark can burn down a whole fucking street!

Crazed with paranoia, Frank grabs his mom's keys and runs out of the house, slamming the door behind him without thinking. A smog of thunderclouds has swept over Trenton and lightning flickers on the black horizon as a cold breeze ruffles his damp hair. His vision is a little blurry and he'll need more painkillers soon for the migraine raving in his head but he should be able to drive to Gee's place. If only he can get there in time.

**  
Awww shit, Gerard snickers to himself, You are sooooo fuckin wasted, kid.  
Hidden away in his little basement den, he's got so high and drunk he can't see straight and his legs are numb but it's not like anyone's around to care about his debauchery. Ain't nobody here but him and it's not as if he has a job or a girlfriend or a fucking glorious rock band with responsibilities anymore so it's not like anything fucking MATTERS now. Oh how the not-so-mighty have fallen.

Somewhere between starting his second bottle of whiskey and snorting his fourth dose of cheap speed, his brain and liver rebelled and left him lying in this pool of spilled liquor and watery puke watching spaceships dance on the ceiling as it spins round and around and around – wheeeeeeeee! - like those fuckin... what are those horse things called that spin around at the fairground? Horse-nados? Like Sharknado? Ahaha, probably not. Who gives a shit?

Trashy 80s punk is blaring at full volume from his stereo speakers and a hundred whiskey droplets quiver and shine on the floorboards with the beat around his body. His warm skin is buzzing with druggy tremors and slick with the boozy sweat soaking through his clothes and his eyes feel prickly and hot. Licking his numb lips with a sloppy tongue, he rolls lazily onto his side as the music changes and guitars shriek like the devil. Fuck headphones, man. His parents are out of town and Mikey called a while ago to say he'd gone to his girlfriend Alicia's house to sleep over. As for the neighbors? Fuck them, it's Friday night goddammit! He's just trying to have a little fun!

But who is he kidding, this is a No Fun Club tonight and he's the only member. A pathetic party of one. Wincing as his stomach gurgles noisily he realizes that he's fucked up the booze/pills ratio of his liquid diet because he's getting pretty woozy and is dangerously close to falling asleep. That's not good. He should get some fresh air.

Stumbling blearily to his feet, Gerard staggers sideways as his head spins and catches himself on a bookcase, knocking a stack of paper comics onto the wet gunky floor. Aw crap, some of those were collectables! Fuck it. Weaving through the sticky mess towards the door, he lurches drunkenly into the wooden frame and bangs his head, laughing at the numb lack of pain as he pulls back the bolt and turns the door handle. Nothing happens. The door is locked. Oh yeah, he locked it about an hour ago like he does every night since he nearly died in L.A. No mystery assassins in motorcycle helmets are ever gonna get into his room. No sir!

Hmmm, so where did he put his keys? Staggering around the stuffy basement room in search of his discarded hoodie, he trips over the stereo's power cord and lands with a thud back on the slippery floor. He must be more wasted than he thought. Ow, is that broken glass?  
Licking a sliver of blood off his palm, he flinches as thunder booms loudly outside and then laughs at himself but it stops being funny a second later when the lights go out and his stereo dies, plunging him into darkness and silence. A power blackout. Stupid storm. Too bad his room doesn't have any proper windows or he could watch the lightning. Sitting up, he giddily licks booze off his dirty fingers and fumbles in his damp pockets for cigarettes, drunkenly jamming one between his lips and sparking up his Zippo lighter. The small flame illuminates a few beloved objects around him leftover from happier times: sketching pencils, some of his old artwork, a replica sword and his original 1981 Misfits poster, but he ignores them all, lost in a smelly dark pit of depression and chemicals that he doesn't ever want to crawl out of. What's the point of being sober when all his dreams are on permanent hiatus and nightmares are all he can see? He may as well be six feet under.

Lighting the cigarette, he takes a long throat-burning drag and exhales into the stuffy darkness, sweat dripping from his greasy black hair. His watch says 02:59am and it's too hot in here. He's got a lot of time to kill before dawn. Climbing clumsily onto the unmade bed, he thumbs the zippo's flame on and off and on and off and on again as the smouldering cigarette dangles from his numb lips. Fire is such a magical thing. So pure. So fierce. Maybe he'll find his keys later when the lights come back on. He could stand to rot away in here for a few more hours and if he needs a piss he'll just use an old beer can or something.

Firing up a portable DVD player – God bless the battery! - he starts watching 'Scream 2' to keep himself awake but pretty soon the darkness is swirling around him like boiled molasses and his dizzy head hits the pillows, making a muffled clunking sound. Yesterday he'd stashed a tobacco tin inside his pillowcase filled with the unmarked pills he confiscated from Frank at the clinic and forgot it was there. Sitting up groggily, he opens the small tin in the zippo's flickering glow and gazes drowsily at the treasure inside. He doesn't know which pills do what but mental patients get all kinds of awesome pharmaceutical shit and he's read online somewhere that drugs for calming down crazy brains can make normal brains hyperactive. Like Ritalin and stuff. That sounds like fun.  
Grabbing a beer from the floor, he opens it with his teeth and tosses two random pills of different colors into his mouth, ignoring the lighter as it tumbles from his shaky grip onto the floor. Let the party continue!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (sorry for the late update and if youre still reading this shit, I LOVE you!)


	25. TWENTY-FIVE

The rain is easing off into a cold sticky drizzle by the time Frank reaches Belleville. Electrical power has returned to the town but thunder and lightning still lurk menacingly beyond the dirty street-lights and clouds are hiding the moon. Pulling up by the Way house, he rushes out of the car so fast he trips on the wet curb and skins his knee and all he can think about is fire and burns and boiling blood and he wants to scream. The building's windows are dark but muffled metal music booms from somewhere deep inside. Maybe he isn't too late after all. Knocking loudly on the front door, he bounces nervously up and down waiting for someone to answer it but nobody does. Shivers skitter down his spine and he tries peeking through the living room window but he can't see a thing. Stepping back, he sniffles in the wintry air, his nose running, and smells something that chills him to the bone: the faint reek of smoke.

Groaning with panic, he dashes behind the house to the back yard and scrambles over the fence, scraping his palms and ripping his sweater on the splintering wood. Racing to the back door with his aching head full of death, he crouches in the dark and gropes blindly under the pile of damp flowerpots until he finds Mr Way's poorly-hidden spare key. Slipping inside the warm home, he whimpers with fear as the stink of burning gets stronger and his heart is pounding so hard it's hurting his chest. He can't believe he's doing this again: sneaking into a dark sinister house where someone he cares about is almost certainly going to die. The thin barrier between his nightmares and reality is blurring and dissolving into a useless speck of nothing and there's jackshit he can do about it. 

Trying to calm his rapid breathing, Frank listens to the space around him and realizes that he can't hear any smoke detectors or alarms going off. Why aren't they beeping or ringing or whatever if Mikey said they were here? Maybe he's just imagining the smell of smoke and there is no fire. It could just be another hallucination or maybe he's finally gone completely insane...

Flipping on the kitchen light with trembling fingers he's relieved to see that everything actually looks pretty normal. The sink is half-full of dirty dishes and there's an empty pizza box and a box of Frankenberry cereal sitting on the counter. There's no sign of fire anywhere but still the sharp stink of smoke and ash remains in his nostrils and stings his eyes. “Gerard?” he calls nervously, creeping into a dim quiet hallway, “Mikey? Yo, is anybody home?” No reply. It's too hot and stuffy in here and the hazy air throbs with smothered music as sweat prickles his scalp and forehead and his stomach churns with nerves. Tip-toeing tensely past the spare room, he jumps as the glass eyes of Mrs Way's freaky china dolls glint at him through the open door. Why does she still collect those things?  
Booming thunder suddenly rumbles outside and he glances up at the ceiling and finally spots a smoke detector above his head but someone has wrapped it in a plastic bag sealed with tape, making it totally useless. What the fuck? Ohhhhh shit, now he remembers. When Gee and Mikey's parents are away the two brothers smoke a lot in the house and burn most of the food they try to cook for themselves so sometimes Gee covers the smoke detectors or removes the batteries for days on end. He might have signed his own death warrant!

Running scared through the empty house, Frank reaches the top of the basement steps and gags as the air around him turns thick and dark and clouds of smoke start to billow around his head. He knew it! Gerard's room is on fire just like he fucking knew it would be... “Gerard!” he yells, charging down the steps, “Gee, are you down here? What the fuck's going on?”  
Metal music continues to howl from behind the door but Gerard doesn't respond so Frank turns the handle and finds out it's locked. “Mikey?” he shouts desperately, coughing as smoke pours out from under Gerard's door in noxious streams, “Gee? Are either of you here?! Someone open this fucking door!” Hammering on the painted wood until his knuckles hurt, he still can't get an answer and the door is starting to feel hot under his shaking hands. Panic and smoke clot together in a heavy lump in his throat and he frantically pulls the cell phone Brian bought him out of his pocket and dials 911. This can't be happening! Not again, not another death, not one of his best friends...

'911, what is your emergency?'  
Breathless and terrified, Frank blurts out that he needs a fire truck and recites Gerard's address, begging the operator to hurry.  
'Ok sir, a fire crew is on their way to you now. They should be there in ten minutes. I need you and anyone else at the scene to leave the building right away for your own safety and retreat to a safe distance?... Sir?'  
“Someone's trapped inside, ten minutes is too late!” Frank gasps, hanging up and stepping back far enough to land a good solid kick on the door, right near the handle. “Oww, fuck!” That really hurt and the door didn't even budge. Why do they make this look so easy on TV? He tries again and the impact shoots pain through his leg but the old, thin door bows slightly under the force of his foot so he kicks it again and again, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve as smoky fumes coil deep into his lungs and burn his watering eyes. 

After five kicks the lock finally cracks and the door bursts open in a scalding blaze of heat and light that hits him like a two-ton truck. Falling to his knees as dizziness warps his brain, he ignores the ghosts and terror screaming in his head and stubbornly crawls into the burning room. Walls of flame roar out of the alcohol-soaked floorboards and piles of old comics erupt into volcanoes of red-hot cinders, turning the basement into a fiery furnace just like the one in his worst dreams. Squinting helplessly at the dazzling glare and boiling smoke as his head swims with noise and pain, he finally spies Gerard's body lying motionless on the smouldering bed and the sight of his friend returns him to his senses. Coughing his lungs raw as sweat drenches his scorched skin, he forces himself to stagger over there and tries to shake Gee awake but it's no use. The singer's eyes are closed and he's barely breathing. The pillow under his pale face is soggy with beery puke and on the grubby sheets near his limp hands are half a dozen very familiar-looking pills. 

“Oh, you fucking moron!” Frank sobs, sooty tears staining his cheeks as he grabs his taller heavier friend under the arms and hauls Gerard's dead weight off the bed with every ounce of strength he has left. Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurts as the flames burn higher, he manages to drag the unconscious singer halfway to the door before his quivering legs give out and he collapses wheezing and coughing on the smoking floor, close to fainting. He can't breathe in this merciless heat and his nose is bleeding again, splattering his blistered lips and hands with warm red goo. Propping himself up on trembling arms, he only makes it halfway to his feet again before exhaustion drops him back onto the burning floorboards and his limbs turn to lead, too heavy to move. 

Fuck this, he's too fucking TIRED for this shit. God, if only he could sleep. Just for a little while, just until he finds the strength to get up. Maybe he could sleep now. It does seem like he's lying down... and it's getting sorta dark... and so hot... maybe the nightmares won't come this time... maybe he'll finally get some rest...

Darkness floods Frank's woozy vision and the back of his head hits the ashy floor with a quiet thud as the last few gasps of oxygen leave his tortured lungs. One of his sleeves catches fire but he can't feel the pain. Burning doesn't hurt if the smoke takes you first.  
Somewhere in the distance a scarlet siren wails and in the stormy night ghosts are weeping. 

**

When Gerard regains consciousness a hard plastic tube is being forced down his throat. Gagging and snorting he tries to cough it out, squinting through sore eyes at a blinding fluorescent light, feeling sicker and more scared than he's ever felt in his life. Harsh voices hiss from the fuzzy edges of his vision and hard quick hands grab his arms and legs and hold him down and he tries to scream but the thing in his throat won't let him. Then a tiny stab of pain pierces his arm and everything goes black and becomes nothing at all.

The second time he wakes up his eyelids are stuck together with sleepy goop and all he can hear is a gentle beeping and somebody crying softly. His mouth is dry and gritty and his whole body itches and aches. Rough unfamiliar bedding smothers his chest and limbs and he can't feel his hands but his head is throbbing. Hungover doesn't even begin to describe it. What the hell is going on? Where is he?  
Oh crap, is he in a hospital? Shit, it must've been those weird pills he stole from Frank. He shouldn't have taken them on top of all that other stuff. If he OD though then who found him and called the ambulance? And did they find all his drugs too and take them away? He still had a hundred dollars worth of shit in his room. Dammit! Oh god, what if his parents find out about this and force him into rehab? Is THIS rehab?! Fuck, fuck, fuck! How the hell is he going to explain himself to...

“Mikey?” he whispers in a hoarse croak, finally recognising the person sobbing next to his body as he opens his eyes and sees his baby brother sitting just a few inches away. The poor kid looks wrecked: deep shadows under his eyes and his hair is a mess. The thick lenses of his glasses are smudged and splashed with tears. “G-Gee?” he stammers, swallowing hard and jumping to his feet, “Are you awake? I mean, like, c-can you hear me?”  
“Er...Yeah?”  
“Good. You had me so worried, you dumb bastard! What the fuck were you thinking this time, huh? Do you even know how much damage you've caused?! Do you even CARE? Christ!” Angrily wiping his face, Mikey turns away and storms out of the tiny hospital room just as a tall nurse and a petite blond doctor arrive. After introducing themselves as Nurse Kevin and Dr Ruby Davies, they adjust the equipment around Gerard's bed and shine small lights in his eyes and mouth, poking his arms and chest and asking him what year it is and who is president and can he remember what County he lives in? Still rattled by his little brother's outburst, Gerard answers their questions as well as he can and his queasy stomach is tight with fear at the thought of saying the wrong thing and finding out that he has brain damage or memory loss. What the hell did he do to end up in here? The last thing he remembers is watching Scream and chugging those stupid pills...

The doctor scribbles some notes on a clipboard while the nurse gently lifts Gerard's right arm out from under the sheets and starts adjusting an IV needle that's taped into a thick blue vein near his elbow. Shivering at the sight, Gerard turns his head away, his heart hammering as he fights down the urge to cry or vomit. He HATES needles, always has. They really freak him out and right now there's nobody here who knows that and can help him calm down. Tears swamp his vision and he starts to cough, feeling hot and sick. His throat is parched and raw and it hurts to swallow. He remembers the horrible plastic tube from before and again finds himself trying not to cry. Lifting his other arm to his wipe his eyes, he's confused and frightened to see that his left hand is covered in bandages and is so stiff he can't move his fingers. Breathing faster as panic trickles down his neck, he tastes soot and melting plastic on his tongue and in the back of his snotty nose. “I... Is s-something burning?” he asks in a scared croak. The nurse raises his eyebrows in quiet amusement and the doctor steps forward with a frown and shines her little pen-light into her patient's nose and mouth again, making him even more anxious. 

Finally she moves off with a sigh and fixes Gerard with a serious stare. “You were in a fire last night, Mr Way. Do you remember?”  
“What? No!”  
“Yes and you're very lucky to be alive. If your brother hadn't come home before the fire fighters arrived and pulled you and your friend out of that room you'd probably be dead, and it's my duty to remind you that smoking in your bedroom is incredibly dangerous, especially when you're under the influence of illegal substances.”  
Gerard cowers guiltily under her disapproving eyes. How could he have messed up so badly? No wonder Mikey is pissed off. Their folks are probably going to murder them!  
“I need to go and update your family now,” Dr Davies sighs, her frown lifting slightly, “And I'll let them know they are free to come in and sit with you. Your injuries are mostly superficial but you'll continue to feel some dizziness and nausea over the next couple of days. We had to pump your stomach and flush some fire debris out of your airway so your throat will be quite sore as well, try not to talk too much. Also the amount of drugs you took caused some minor liver damage that we'll need to keep an eye on. Kevin will be here to check your vital signs and manage your medication until we can move you to another ward.” With a nod goodbye, the doctor hangs her clipboard on a hook at the end of the bed and exits. 

Gerard shudders miserably, salty tears spilling over and painting his cheeks as he burrows the side of his face into a pillow. Kevin shoots him a sympathetic look and starts straightening the bedsheets, “Don't mind the doc,” he says gently, “She just can't stand to see kids like you throwing your lives away on chemicals, y'know?”  
Gerard nods faintly, his aching head spinning with self-hatred.  
“Are you in any pain?” Kevin asks, “Cos I can request more medication.”  
“No. I mean, not really. Can I h-have some water?”  
“Sure thing.”  
Fetching a full cup with a straw in it from the bedside table, the nurse holds it to his patient's lips and Gerard gratefully sips the cold thirst-quenching liquid until he suddenly remembers something the doctor mentioned and looks up in confusion. “Wait a minute, why did Dr Davies say there was a friend with me in the fire? I was alone, n-no one else should've been in my room.”  
Kevin's smile fades into a worried frown and he sits down solemnly in a chair beside the bed, resting his hands on his knees. “There was another guy there, about your age. The ID we found in his clothes said Frank Iero.”  
“FRANK was there?! How the hell did he get to Belleville? Was he hurt? Is he okay?”  
“I'm afraid not. Look man, I'm sorry but...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((But... WHAT???  
> Should Frank live or die, my dears?  
> Who knows? *evil laugh*  
> Sorry for the wait again xxx))


	26. TWENTY-SIX

“Look man, I'm sorry but...”  
Right then the door bangs open and Mikey bursts back into the room with Don and Donna Way at his heels, cutting off the nurse's words with an unusually venomous stare. Gerard's father has a seething stony look in his eyes and Donna is silently crying trails of mascara down her gaunt cheeks but her eyes are filled with fury. Kevin takes one look at the angry family and jumps to his feet. “I'll give you guys some privacy,” he mutters, rushing out and leaving Gerard shocked and nauseous and staring fearfully up at his parents and brother as they gather in a scowling huddle around his bed. The antiseptic air vibrates with a raging tension and the hungover singer desperately wants to crawl away into a deep dark hole somewhere, preferably with a bottle of Jack or Smirnoff to block out the world of shit he knows is coming his way. 

“Listen, I-I can explain,” he stammers desperately, trying to think of something to say, but Don stops his babbling in an instant. “Save your excuses, son. We don't want to hear them.”  
“Half the house is burned to shit because of your goddamn addictions!” Donna sobs, jabbing a red-painted fingernail at her eldest son's face, “And we even lost some of the heirlooms your poor grandmother left us. You covered the damn smoke detectors! What the hell are we supposed to tell the insurance company? What are we supposed to tell grandpa? Jesus, Gerard, how could you do this?!”  
“You need professional help Gee,” Mikey interrupts, resting a hand on his mother's arm, “Before you end up dead.”  
“Think of this as a long overdue intervention,” Don adds, folding his arms and looking down at Gerard in furious disappointment, “Your mother and I have signed you into a clinic for thirty days of in-patient detox and rehabilitation. No visitors or early releases and NO arguments from you!”  
Gerard opens his mouth to protest, his eyes swimming and his stomach in knots but what the hell can he say? He knows he screwed up. Everything in his bedroom is probably destroyed and he hates himself even more for ruining the things left behind by his beloved grandmother Elena. All the collectables under his bed and the comics he's been buying since he was six years old. Shit and all of his drugs too, all gone! “Fuck,” he whispers, burying his face in his hands and wincing as pain that he very much deserves right now throbs in his bandaged fingers, “I'm so sorry...”  
“Frank is the one you should be saying sorry to,” Mikey spits, “But oh wait, you can't.”

“W-Why? Ohgod, please don't say Frank's dead!” Gerard cries, sitting up and grabbing Mikey's hand so fast he pulls out his IV needle and tiny specks of blood spray his arm.  
“No,” Mikey sighs, snatching his hand away in disgust, “But close enough. He's in a coma, Gee, and burned up pretty bad, and all because you got wasted and dropped your fucking lighter into a puddle of your own fucking booze! He's the one who needs your apologies now, not us.”  
“Watch your language, Michael,” Don mutters.  
“Oh god,” Gerard whimpers, gasping for breath as bile and tears of guilt clog up his sore throat, “But why...w-why was Frankie even there?!”  
Mikey narrows his eyes, refusing to meet his brother's frightened gaze. “I got a call late last night while I was sleeping over at Alicia's,” he mumbles, “Frank's mom at three in the morning, hysterical because Frank had a massive panic attack or something and took off in her car. She overheard him talking to me on the phone yesterday and thought he seemed really worried about you – jeez, I wonder why! - so she figured he'd be heading over to our house. I ran home as fast as I could.”  
“He came to help me?” Gerard sobs, blind with tears as a creeping dread and cold sweat soaks his skin, “Did he have another nightmare?”  
“I dunno, maybe. Are you two still obsessed with those fucking dreams?” Mikey frowns.  
“It doesn't matter why he was there,” Donna interrupts, “The fact is he almost DIED because of your drunken carelessness, Gerard! I don't think poor Linda is ever going to speak to us again.”

“He tried to save you, you know,” Mikey adds, finally levelling his gaze at Gerard as grief shines in his dark eyes, “By the time I got to the house he'd already broken down your door but he must've passed out trying to get your drunk ass out of the basement. His body blocked the flames and protected you too cos when I dragged you both to safety you weren't hurt too bad but his clothes were on fire and he wasn't breathing! I smothered the flames and did CPR but it took so long to bring him back. You fucking IDIOT! YOU did this! YOU hurt Frankie! And after all those times he defended you for getting drunk while we recorded our last album, now you've almost fucking killed him!”  
Quivering with emotion, Mikey kicks the bed-frame as hard as he can and leaves the room in tears. Donna follows him without a word, but Don stays where he is for a few more moments and gives Gerard a meaningful glare. “Stop crying and start thinking about how you're going to make this right,” he whispers as Kevin shuffles back into the room holding thick velcro restraints which he attaches to the rails on either side of Gerard's bed, obviously ready to strap him down if he resists the transfer to rehab. “See you in thirty days,” Don sighs, unable to look at his sobbing offspring anymore as he turns to leave. 

**  
That night Gerard cries himself to sleep in a locked clinic cell, queasy and feverish as a dose of prescribed sedatives drag him under the heavy waves of a rough and troubled sleep.  
The dream world quickly swallows him up and the next thing he knows he's opening his eyes in the middle of a desolate burning wasteland.

He finds himself standing on a pile of rubble in the smoking ruins of a strange war-torn city. Ashes are raining down like snow from a dark smoggy sky and the empty bombed streets are full of shadows and cinders, a dead scene of endless black and gray. A cold eerie wind is the only sound for miles and it chills him to the bone. “Hello...is anyone there?” he whimpers into the smoky breeze as dust burns his eyes and nose, “Where am I?”  
“You're on the other side,” a soft voice replies and he turns in surprise, stumbling on broken bricks, to see a young woman standing behind him. She's wearing a short black and white military-style dress with silver buttons and braided shoulders and her long blond hair looks gray and lifeless in the monochrome landscape. Everything here feels dead and destroyed and Gerard knows in his heart that this girl is dead too as she gazes knowingly at him with pale eyes smeared in black warpaint. She's the girl from the basement murder scene in Los Angeles that still haunts him to this day. She's the corpse he found lying beside Frank's unconscious body in a pool of blood. Lorna Mackenzie.

“You? How can you be here?” he stammers, coughing on the raining ash that tastes and smells so real but can't possibly be, “Am I dreaming?”  
“Not exactly,” Lorna whispers, her low voice as dry and breathy as rustling leaves, “But this is where your nightmares and Frank's and mine all came from.” Turning in a slow circle, she gestures with a black-gloved hand at the dark molten sky and desolate streets, “This is the other side.”

“The other side of what?” an familiar voice barks from the shadows and Gerard is shocked to see Frank appear beside them out of nowhere. The guitarist is breathing roughly and trembling all over and he looks like he's literally been dragged through Hell and back. Half his clothes are scorched or burned away and all of the skin on his left arm and the left side of his neck and jaw is blistered and scarred beyond repair. Some of his black hair has been singed down to the roots and his eyes are ringed with shadows that make him look as dead as Lorna. “Frankie!" Gerard sobs in horror, his throat choked with guilt, “I'm so sorry!”  
“What the fuck is going on?” Frank asks in a raspy voice, looking with fury and fear between Gerard and Lorna, “What is this place and why are we here? Am I dead? Is Gerard dead?” 

“No,” Lorna answers, her white lips parting in a small smile as far away bass drums begin to beat in the distance, “You're not meant to join the parade yet.”  
“What fucking parade?! Dammit, Lorna, stop with all the shitty ghost riddles!” Frank cries, his voice cracking in frustration, “For fuck's sake just tell me what's going on!” Clenching his fists in front of him, he suddenly seems to realize that his skin is a freshly burned ruin and stares at it in shock as if he had no idea he was hurt, “Ohmygod, what the fuck's happened to me?”  
“Shhh now, it's all going to be alright,” Lorna soothes, stepping forwards and gently cupping Frank's cheek in her hand, “You don't have to be scared anymore, Frankie. Take a look around. All of this destruction is the result of a war that's been raging here for a very long time, a long and bloody conflict between those who wanted living breathing people like you to see the future and those who didn't. The ones who didn't want you to see death in your dreams have finally won and this side of existence will not interfere with yours anymore. No one else will ever have to suffer again like we did. No one else will see future tragedies that drive them mad. It's over now. It's finally going to end.”

Across the ruins the drumbeats are getting louder and now guitars and trumpets have joined the melody in a bleak but beautiful harmony. Gerard squints through the falling ash towards the noise and sees the hazy shapes of parade floats crawling over the dead horizon followed by dozens if not hundreds of marching corpses, all dressed in dusty black and white. High above them a small old-fashioned airship bobs and soars on the burning winds and the ashes look more like confetti now, falling over the bizarre scene like streamers at a victory celebration. 

Lorna and Frank embrace and she strokes what's left of his hair while he buries his face in her neck and starts to cry, his thin shoulders shaking. Whether he's weeping with sorrow or relief Gerard can't tell but the sound makes his stomach ache and he knows that he can never let his friend get hurt again. 

“You have to go now,” Lorna whispers, rubbing Frank's back as the music and parade floats move closer, flowing through the broken streets like a river of monochrome blood, “Like I said, it's not time for you to join us yet.” With gentle hands she pushes Frank away and he stumbles backwards, wiping his streaming eyes and nose on the back of his wrist. Gerard grabs one of his shoulders to steady him and he sniffles and nods slightly in gratitude, leaning against his older friend's side.

“You'll both be safe now, I promise,” Lorna says, walking away as the music gets louder and individual faces become visible in the crowd of parading ghosts: a tall woman with wild hair wearing an early 20th century gas-mask; twin Chinese girls in striped black dresses twirling silver batons; a troop of young hairless cancer patients in hospital gowns punching the air as they march behind the band playing on the lead float. Gerard stares in fascination at the vast gothic spectacle, wanting to capture it all in his memory forever, but the parade and Lorna and the city around them are already fading away and he can feel the faint touch of a pillow against his face...

In another instant it's all gone and he's opening his eyes in his small clinic bunk, back in the land of the living.

***  
With a hoarse heaving gasp, Frank awakes in a bed in the hospital's Burn Unit covered in bandages and ice-packs and sees his worried mother watching over him. His face is wet and his tired body aches and throbs all over with morphine-numbed pain but this time he remembers everything and he's not scared anymore. A weird sort of peace settles over him as Linda runs to fetch a doctor. He's alive and recovering and he knows that somewhere out there Gerard is too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((As always thank you so much for your patience  
> and your comments - they give me life, they really do!  
> This story is coming to an end now, probably only one more chapter to go.  
> Let me know what you think (if you feel like it). xxx))


	27. TWENTY-SEVEN - EPILOGUE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Hello faithful readers. I'm sorry I had to go away for a while but I always intended to give this weird story a proper little ending so here it is x ))

The roads to recovery taken by Frank and Gerard are long, difficult and miserable. Gerard is trapped behind security gates and locked doors, puking and shaking his way through substance withdrawal and haunted by guilt over starting that fire. None of his family come to visit and he's left all alone to either get better or get worse, sink further down or learn how to swim.  
Meanwhile Frank is strapped down by faceless doctors in surgical masks who slice and strip away the cracked dead flesh on his arm, shoulder and neck and pull him through a morphine-soaked twilight world of skin-grafts, wound infections, physical therapy and pain. His mother never leaves his side but half the time he doesn't even know she's there.

The only silver lining for either of them is that the gut-wrenching visions of future murders do not return. Occasionally a flashback to Lorna's basement will wake one of them crying or screaming in the night, but the ultra-realistic hallucinations and terrors that nearly drove Frank insane are gone. The ghost of Lorna he saw in that weird black and white dreamworld must have told the truth: his inner crystal ball of doom and gloom has vanished.

**  
TWO MONTHS LATER:

The spring sunshine hurts Gerard's eyes as he stands nervously outside the rehab centre chain-smoking Marlboros while he waits for his ride. He's lost weight in rehabilitation and his clothes feel baggy and stretched out but at least they're a lot cleaner since he detoxed from the last of the booze. After thirty days in the clinic he was physically healed and completely sober but the post-traumatic stress urging him to drink and chug pills like they were candy was still an issue so his forgiving parents had paid for an extra month of therapy and treatment to teach him how to cope with his demons.

Last night, waiting to be released, he couldn't sleep at all: trembling at the thought of being back in the outside world and left to fend for himself, so he spent the lonely pre-dawn hours sawing off his long tangled hair with blunt scissor blades, unable to cope with the clingy weight of it hanging in his eyes any longer. The short black scruff he's got left covering his scalp feels cold and kinda itchy but he's cool with it. He'd shave his whole head if he had the guts and is contemplating bleaching his remaining hair white. Anything for a change. This is meant to be a new start after all.

Before long an old black jeep pulls up to the curb and Gerard grabs his backpack and sketchbook from the pavement and jumps into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind him. “Hey man,” Brian smiles, pulling the singer into a hug, “You doing okay?”  
“Yeah I think I'm getting there,” Gerard replies, turning nervously to face the person sitting behind them in the back seat. “Hey Mikes. Are we...good?”  
“I guess so,” Mikey murmurs, trying to hide a smile as cautious affection shines in his brown eyes, “What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

It's only been a few months since My Chemical Romance went on hiatus after the events in LA and to keep people interested in the band Warner Music have kept releasing singles during their absence: first the Gothic MTV masterpiece 'Helena', the video for which was the last thing the guys filmed together before Frank's nightmares tore their world apart, and then another rushed video made up of clips from old tour footage for 'The Ghost of You'.

Nobody wants the band to end, especially Frank whose main motivation for recovery was always the thought of playing songs with his friends again without any fear or blood behind his eyes, so after several days of long emotional phone calls between everyone involved, Brian is driving the Way brothers to Trenton.

**  
When the sound of tyres rumbles up the driveway outside, Frank bites his lip until it hurts and starts rubbing nervously at the fabric strapping on his arm. He hasn't seen or spoken to Gerard in months and is only just starting to feel normal again after his last surgery when the hospital finally set him free. The burns on his neck and jaw have healed pretty well but his arm is itchy and ugly as sin and has to stay wrapped up tight to flatten out the bumpy ridges of scar tissue and transplanted skin that make him feel like Frankenstein's monster. Fortunately his hands were all but untouched by the fire and he can still move his fingers enough to play a guitar but it hurts to lift the heavy Les Paul models that he loves. He'll probably have to start playing light-weight Telecasters instead which kinda sucks. 

His mom has been an absolute saint getting him through the worst of the pain and panic attacks, but the new peace and quiet inside his head and the empty ghost-free mirrors in the house still feel fragile and temporary and he's scared of falling back into the darkness he's only just left behind. Lorna's face never truly leaves his thoughts and it makes him want to cry knowing that it probably never will.

The doorbell rings and Frank gets up from his perch on the edge of the living room couch and clenches his fists, swallowing hard. He doesn't hate Gerard for any of the shit that went down but at the same time he's terrified that their friendship is too badly warped or broken to be fixed now. The future of the band depends on them being able make things better but what if it's too awkward and they can't?  
Ray wanders into the room then with a cup of coffee and puts a comforting arm around Frank's heaving shoulders, guiding him gently towards the front door. “It's gonna be okay, Frankie, we're just gonna talk, right? Deep breaths, man. Did you take your anxiety meds?”  
“Uh huh,” Frank croaks, forcing himself to reach out and open the door for Brian and Mikey who quickly reach behind them and drag a short-haired healthy looking Gerard into view. The singer stares wide-eyed at Frank for a moment, taking in his pale worried face and fresh pink scar tissue, and then his eyes flood with tears and he hangs his head, clutching a battered sketchbook to his chest like a security blanket. “God, Frankie, I'm so s-sorry!” he blurts in a rush, sobs choking his words into a mumbling mess, “I'm so fucking sorry for everything, I never, NEVER meant for you to get hurt and I can't thank you enough for what you did. Can you ever forgive m-me?”

“Shit. I know you didn't mean it,” Frank sighs, leaning on the door-frame with Ray standing strong and steady at his side, “But thanks for saying so. And yeah, y'know, of course I forgive you. We're friends right? Friends forgive. I'm actually proud of you for doing the whole rehab thing and sorting your shit out. To be honest I'm kinda sorry too.”

“For w-what?”

“I guess for shutting you guys out when things started to go crazy for me. I'm sorry for making everyone worry. I just felt so fucking alone when all that shit was going on, I was literally losing my mind, and I didn't know why. Now I'm feeling pretty solid again but it's a different kind of solid then before. Uh... Hard to explain I guess, but I've really missed you. I miss all you guys.”  
“I-I missed you too,” Gerard sniffs, wiping his face on his sleeve and hesitantly raising his hands to offer a hug. Frank throws his arms around him in return and buries his face in his friend's smoky chest letting love and relief chase away his remaining anxiety. He almost feels normal again for the first time in months. “Just so you know, I think your hair looks weird,” he whispers with a smirk and Gerard snorts in amusement, dropping his sketchbook as the eager embrace knocks them both off balance.  
The book hits the doorstep and falls open on a beautiful charcoal sketch of immaculately detailed figures that immediately catches Frank's eye. Gasping in recognition, he pulls away from Gerard and stares open-mouthed at the drawing of ghostly beings marching across a familiar ruined cityscape. There's a title scrawled above the picture in Gerard's jagged handwriting and it strikes a chord somewhere in Frank's heart that makes him shiver: The Black Parade. Gerard follows his gaze and then the two of them stare at each other in amazement and disbelief. “You saw it too?!” Frank gasps, making the others frown in confusion, "Were you actually IN my dream?" “Wow, I guess so... and I want to make it real!" Gerard says passionately, “I mean, I think we have to. Right?”  
Frank nods slowly, thinking back to that strange shadowy after-life of falling ash and distant drumming. “Yeah,” he agrees, “I think we do.”

At that moment Bob arrives carrying pizza boxes and a crate of beer and stops in his tracks at the sight of the group standing in the doorway. “Hey, is everyone okay?” he asks hopefully, “Is the band still, um... carrying on?”  
Gerard grins at Frank and bends down to retrieve the fallen sketchbook and Frank looks around at his friends with cautious excitement, his re-energized brain already creating new guitar riffs and beautiful black and white tributes to Lorna and Anna and every other young life cut too damn short. “Yeah, I think we'll carry on,” he says, “But we've got a hell of a lot to talk about first.”

 

THE END


End file.
